Feb. 1, 1900.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST,' 
511 
immediately under notice, and we are fortunate 
enough to have a eraphic ftccount from a £;entle- 
man who was intimately acquainted with "Logie" 
and its inmates in its early days. The following 
speaks for itself : — 
MONEO BT MUNIO. * 
(Notes by Old Colonist. J 
" Two BOYS " was the brief news brought 
to Captain not yet Sir James — as he 
patrolled the lawn in front of West Hall 
hoiise one fine morning in 18il. 
The bearer of the news was Lady Elphin- 
stone, his mother, and the brusqiie Captain 
laconically replied " Tivo T — adding sotto voce, 
" One too many for a poor man." 
The Blphinstone family have a tremendous 
long pedigree, deservedly honoured in the 
Garioch for the past two-and-a-half centuries. 
Albeit a fruitful i-ace, Lady Blphinstone herself 
— one of the noblest and most beautiful of her 
sex — contributing 15, of whom James was the 
eldest alive, somehow the acres did not 
multiply in proportion to the members of 
the family. Yet Logie and West Hall were 
amongst the most valuable properties in the 
" Granary of Aberdeenshire " and might with 
care have sustained a very large retinue. 
West Hall, the loveliest in the locality, a 
beautiful brae-side with grand old ivy-clad 
house picturesquely situated amongst its old 
umbrageous trees. Logie, more home-like, 
stands on sheltered terrace within sound of the 
ripple of the river Gadie, where in a wooded 
nook it meets the Ury — as if by tryst. The 
house — an ideal "Auld House" — was built 
about 180 years ago and has undergone but 
few alterations. In front of both stands 
Benachie, around the foot of which wimples 
the Gadie of sweetest song. 
There are few more hallowed spots in 
Scotland than the banks of tlie Gadie, none 
to which exiles look back with greater affec- 
tion, or sing its praises with more pathos. 
A poor little rivulet— a mere burn, in which 
two can scarcely paddlo abreast and yet, says 
a traveller, while lying on the banks of the 
greatest river in the world, surrounded by 
threatening savages, my inmost thoiights 
found expression in : — 
" O ! gin I were whaur Gadie rins 
At the foot o' Benachie." 
There are at least a dozen vei-sions of this 
very pathetic song, but always with the 
sfime refrain. I well remember accompany- 
ing the eminent antiquarian, Ohas. Dalrymple, 
on an expedition throvigh the district, the 
object of which was partly to open vip some 
ancient mounds and partly to collect from 
the oldest residents, such words of the local 
song as they could recollect. It was amiising 
to hear an old crone with cracked voice 
singing :— 
"I never had but ae richt lad, 
But ae richt lad, but ae richt lad, 
The teen was killed at Lourin fair, 
The tithcr was drooned i' the Dee " 
* The motto of the family " I warn and guard." 
Or more pathetically the old widower's 
" O! gin I were whaur Gadie rins, 
Whaur Gadie rins, whaur Gadie rins 
Or she that dwalt where Gadie rins, 
O ! gin she were wi' me 1 
It's no the hill, though it be brave 
It's no the sowp o' Gadie's wave- 
But she that bloomed o'er a' the lave 
And gae her heart to me. 
Tho' few to welcom me remain 
Tho' a I lo'ed be deid and gane, 
111 back tho' I should live alane, 
To the foot o' Benachie." 
Many are the associations connected with 
Logie, the most hospitable of houses. The 
family was Jacobite in its sympathies, as 
indicated by the frequency of the name James, 
but not being over-demonstrative partisans, 
they escaped notice, and were able to render 
hospitality to the less fortunate, whose lands 
were confiscated. A story is told of the 
attainted Lord Pitsligo occasionally leaving 
his hiding-place on Benachie to spend a 
jolly night with the Blphinstones. Lady 
Elphinstone commented upon the hard drink- 
ing into which the friends would fall on a 
safe night, but was answered by the 
humorous refugee that " if she was sitten upon 
a cauld bare stane up on Benachie, we naething 
but burn water, she micht ca tJiai hard 
drinking." 
The neighbouring townships of Inverurie 
and Port Blphinstone were much indebted to 
the Elphinstone family— the latter indeed for 
its name and the 16-mile canal which con- 
nected it with Aberdeen ; while the North of 
Scotland Railway may be said to have been 
initiated and carried through by the public 
spirit of the late Sir James. In reading up 
the old records of Inverurie I find, by the 
way, that the Clan Ferguson is very largely 
i^epresented, the name being the most common 
in the annals of the village and in a solitary 
Tytler — "the last of the portioners " — I trace 
the father of our own K.B.T. 
The grandfather of the late Sir James, 
General Robt. Dalrymple, was an officer of 
long and distinguislaed service which began 
actively in the expedition to Carthagena as 
aide-de-camp to his relative. Lord Cathcart. 
The celebrated Tobias Smollet was a surgeon 
in this expedition and describes it in " Rodrick 
Random. The first Sir James Elphinstone of 
Logie acquired the lands in 1670. He was a 
Writer to the Signet and unfortunately sub- 
scribed largely to the disastrous Darien Scheme 
by which so many of the Scottish gentry were 
severely bitten, Probably the next tropical 
investment was in Ceylon, When the late Sir 
James was Commander of an East Indian, 
he visited the island and, as he told us at 
the Kadienlena dinner, explored the valley 
of Kotmalie in the early forties, reached the 
patana on the opposite side of the oya and 
looking towards the S.W., saw a ridge to 
shelter him from the monsoon and then 
resolved to anchor. 
It is now high time to retm^n to our boys of 
whom the ever-cheery father soon got very 
fond and proud ; named one after hia 
grandfather Robert; the other after the 
grandmother, Grmme. The boys grew and 
flourished ; early developing their individual 
idiosyncrasies, showing in a marked manner 
how. the child "is father of the ijian." Bob, 
