CHAPTER XXXVII. 



The Delights of Beltane Tide— Bishop Gawin Douglas— His Translation of the JEtuid— 

 The Fat of Deer—" Light and Shade " from the Gaelic— Mackworth Praed— Discovery 

 of an old Flint Manufactory in the Moss of Ballachulish. 



In tlie poetry and proverbs of our country you constantly meet 

 with references whicli go to prove that alternations of sunshine and 

 shower [April 1873] have for ages been held to be the meteorological 

 characteristics of an April day throughout the British Islands, and 

 most of all, perhaps, in Scotland. To go no further, you will 

 remember Scott's concluding lines in Rokeby — 



" Time and Tide had thus their sway, 

 Yielding, like an April day, 

 Smiling noon for suUen morrow. 

 Years of joy for hours of sorrow." 



This, however, has been the driest April known in the West 

 Highlands for at least a score of years past. Hardly any rain has 

 fallen during the month, and with a bright sun overhead, and 

 drying north-easterly winds, rivers and streams have seldom been 

 at a lower ebb even in midsummer, while in some places you hear 

 complaints of an absolute scarcity of water even for ordinary house- 

 hold purposes — a very rare thing, indeed, in the West Highlands at 

 this season of the year, or for that matter of it at any season. There 

 was, however, such a superabundance of moisture in the ground, 

 from the heavy rains of the past winter, that vegetation has as yet 

 suffered little or nothing from the drought, and the country is 

 beautiful exceedingly in all its greenery of leaf and gaiety of ex- 



p 



