184 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS. [cmap. xx1r 
the plantations at Dalmigaire and considerable tracts of corn- 
ground—the corn in this high country being still perfectly green. 
Here and there was a small farm-house on a green mound, with 
a peat-stack larger than the house itself. As we passed these, a 
bare-headed and bare-legged urchin would look at us round a 
corner of the building, and then running in, would bring out the 
rest of the household to stare at us. If we entered one of the 
houses, we were always greeted with hospitable smiles, and the 
good wife, wiping a chair with her apron, would produce a bowl 
of excellent milk (such milk as you only can get in the High- 
lands) and a plate of cheese and oat-cake, the latter apparently 
~ consisting of chopped straw, and seasoned with gravel, though 
made palatable by the kind welcome with which it was given. 
Frequently, too, a bottle of whisky would be produced, and a 
glass of it urged on us, or we were pressed to stop to take an ege 
or something warm. At Freeburn we parted—my friend to go 
by coach to Inverness, and | to keep my course down the river, 
which is surrounded by dreary grey hills. As I got on, how- 
ever, the banks grew more rocky and picturesque, enlivened here 
and there by the usual green patches of corn, and the small farm- 
houses, with their large peat-stack, but diminutive corn-stack. 
Near Freeburn I talked to an old Highlander, who was flogging 
the water with a primitive-looking rod and line and a coarse- 
looking fly, catching, however, a goodly number cf trout. He 
was the first angler I had as yet passed, with the exception of a 
kilted boy, belonging to the shepherd at our place of rest, who 
was already out when we tert nome, catching trout for his own 
breakfast and that of a young peregrine falcon which he had 
caught in the rocks opposite the house, and was keeping wholly 
on a fish diet-—and a more beautiful and finer bird I never saw, 
although she had fed for many weeks on nothing but small trout, 
a food not so congenial to her as rabbits and pigeons and the 
other products of the low country. I bought the hawk of him, 
and have kept her ever since. Below Freeburn I had to wade 
the river, in order to avoid a very difficult and somewhat dan- 
gerous pass on the rocks. Frequently I met with fresh tracks 
of the otter. In some places, where the water fell over rocks of 
any height, so as to prevent the animal from keeping the bed of 
the river, there were regularly hard beaten paths by which they 
