Gairloch In North-West Ross-Shire Part 28

They offered fifteen pounds to any one who could inform them, but no one could tell them anything of the place. Here is the true account of this captain and his death and burial. It was about 1822 that I was living with my father in Mellon Charles house. A schooner going to Newcastle with bars of bra.s.s put in for shelter to the sound of Isle Ewe. She lay opposite the d.y.k.e on the island; that is still the safest anchorage, the best holding ground in a storm. Two of the crew came ash.o.r.e at Aultbea, and said the captain had got ill, and they were seeking a doctor; there was no doctor then in the country. My father used to go and see some who would be sick, and would bleed them if they would require it. So the two sailors were told to go to him, and they took him out to the schooner.

He found the captain lying dead in his cabin, and there were cuts in different parts of his head as if he had been killed by his men. He was buried in the old churchyard in the Isle of Ewe, still enclosed by a d.y.k.e; there is a headstone yet standing at his grave. No other sea captain has been buried in this district for many years, except John M'Callum, John M'Taggart, and this captain buried in Isle Ewe."

THE LOSS OF THE "GLENELG."

"It was about 1825 that the mail-packet called the 'Glenelg of Glenelg'

was lost. A year before that the Right Honourable Stewart Mackenzie, who had in 1817 married Lady Hood, the representative of the Seaforth family and proprietrix of the Lews, bought the 'Glenelg' to ply with the mails between Poolewe and Stornoway. Poolewe is the nearest port on the mainland to Stornoway. There had been packets on the same service generations before. The 'Glenelg' was a smack of about sixty tons. Her crew consisted of two brothers, Donald and John Forbes, and a son of Kenneth M'Eachainn, of Black Moss (Bac Dubh), now called Moss Bank, at Poolewe. Donald was the master, and John the mate. She was going to Stornoway about once every week, but she had not a fixed time. It was on a Sat.u.r.day, either the end of November or beginning of December, that the Rev. Mr Fraser, who was minister of Stornoway, returned to Poolewe from the low country. He had come down Loch Maree in a boat. The master of the 'Glenelg' was ash.o.r.e at the inn, which was then at Cliff House.

Mr Fraser came to Donald Forbes, and told him he would require to be at Stornoway that evening to preach on the morrow. Donald said it was not weather to go. Mr Fraser said he would prosecute or punish him for not going; then Donald said he should take care before he would not punish himself, and that he knew his business as well as Mr Fraser knew his own. At last Mr Fraser persuaded him to go; and there were two other pa.s.sengers, Murdo M'Iver from Tigh na faoilinn, who was going to be a Gaelic teacher in a parish near Stornoway, and Kirstie Mackenzie from Croft. They started about nine o'clock in the morning, with two reefs in the mainsail. Donald M'Rae from Cove was out on the hill for a creel of peats and saw the 'Glenelg' loosing some of her canvas after going out of Loch Ewe. Nothing more was seen of her. M'Iver's box was washed ash.o.r.e at Scoraig in Little Loch Broom, and two handspikes and the fo'scuttle. Another packet was afterwards put on the same service."

WRECK OF THE "HELEN MARIANNE" OF CAMPBELTON.

"John M'Taggart from Campbelton had a smack called the 'Helen Marianne.'

He used to come to Glen Dubh buying herrings, and he had two fishing boats of his own worked with the smack. I saw him in Glen Dubh when I was fishing there; it would be about 1850. One Sabbath night he left Loch Calava at the entrance to Glen Dubh, and set sail for home, thus breaking the Sabbath. A storm from the north-east came on, and in the night he struck on the Greenstone Point, at the other side of Oban, or Opinan, there, and all hands were lost. Donald Mackenzie and Kenneth Cameron, the elder of the church, both living in Sand, had the grazing of Priest Island. On the Tuesday they went out to that island to see the cattle, and there they found the dead body of John McTaggart, along with an empty barrel. They thought he must have been washed off the deck, as the vessel had been carried past Priest Island before she was wrecked.

They brought the body to Sand, and buried it in the churchyard with the rest of the crew, whose bodies were all recovered. There would be six or seven of them in all, for the crews of the fishing boats were with the smack, the two boats being on deck, one on each side."

WRECK OF THE "LORD MOLYNEUX" OF LIVERPOOL.

"Farquhar Buidhe, who was one of the Mathesons of Plockton, and brother of Sandy Matheson the blind fiddler there, was the owner and master of the trawler 'Lord Molyneux,' a smack he had bought at Liverpool. He used to come to Glen Dubh for the herring fishery. It was two or three years before the wreck of the 'Helen Marianne' of Campbelton that Farquhar set sail for home one Sabbath night. Before daylight he was lost upon a rock at the end of the island of Oldany. These two ships were both lost from Sabbath-breaking."

JOHN MACDONALD, THE DROVER OF LOCH MAREE.

"It was about 1825 that John Macdonald lived at Talladale. He was a cattle drover, and was always known as 'The drover of Loch Maree.' He was a fine tall man; I remember seeing him. He wore a plaid and trousers of tartan, and a high hat. He used to go to the Muir of Ord market with the cattle he bought in Gairloch. At that time large quant.i.ties of smuggled whisky were made in Gairloch and Loch Torridon. John Macdonald got the loan of an open boat at Gairloch. She was a new boat, with a seventeen foot keel; I remember seeing her. He worked her round to Loch Torridon, and then he took a cargo of whisky for Skye. Two Torridon men accompanied him. A storm came on from the south or south-west, and they could not make Skye. The boat was driven before the wind till she reached the sh.o.r.e of a.s.synt, on the south side of Stoir head. There they came ash.o.r.e; the boat was found high and dry, and quite sound, above high-water mark. John Macdonald and his companions were never seen again, and some a.s.synt men said that they had been murdered for their whisky. a.s.synt was a wild country then, and long before."

THE MURDER OF GRANT, THE PEDDLER.

"It was about 1829 there lived in a house some three hundred yards above the present parks at Tournaig a man named Grant. He had three sons, William and Sandy, and another, who was the youngest, whose Christian name I forget. He was a peddler, a good-looking lad, about twenty-three years of age at the time. He used to carry his pack on his back through the country. He often went to a.s.synt, and was acquainted with one M'Leod, who lived near Loch Nidd, to the north of Stoir head. M'Leod was a kind of teacher; he was a great favourite with the women. Grant, the peddler, was stopping in a house near M'Leod's, and M'Leod was seeing him. One morning, after breakfast, Grant left his lodgings to walk across to Lochinver with his pack on his back. M'Leod joined him, to convoy him out of the township. When they were out of sight of the houses M'Leod struck the peddler with a small mason's hammer, which he had concealed in his breast. He struck him at the back of the ear, and killed him clean. When M'Leod saw the peddler was dead, he would have given three worlds to have made him alive again, as he afterwards said; but it was too late. M'Leod put the body in a small loch, still called from this circ.u.mstance Loch Torr na h' Eiginn, or 'the loch of the mound of violence,' and he put stones on the body to keep it from floating. A man in the township had a dream that the peddler had been murdered and put in this loch, and he went with his neighbours and found the body there. The neighbours thought this man had killed Grant, because he knew where the body was. The poor man was apprehended, and taken to the gaol at Dornoch, where he was kept for a year, and his sufferings caused his hair to come from his head. He was not set free till M'Leod confessed the murder. The men of the place were all anxious to find out the murderer of the peddler, that they might clear their own families.

"M'Leod, soon after the murder, hid the peddler's pack in a stack of peats. He took part of the goods out of it to give to some of his sweethearts, of whom he had too many! The girl that was in the house where Grant had lodged had taken notice of the contents of the pack. She saw some of the things after the murder with a girl who was a neighbour, and whom M'Leod was courting. She said to this girl, 'It must have been you, or some one belonging to you, that killed Grant.' This girl was taken to Dornoch gaol, and another girl who was seen with a piece of cloth that had been in Grant's pack was also taken to gaol. The neighbours were all against each other, trying to discover the murderer.

At last these two girls gave evidence that they had received the things from M'Leod, and upon their testimony he was found guilty of the murder before the judge at Inverness. He would not confess to the murder, until the Rev. Mr Clark, minister of a church in King Street, in Inverness, who was attending on the condemned man, worked upon him so that he told the whole truth. It was not until this confession that the man who had had the dream was released from Dornoch gaol. Poor man, he never got over it. M'Leod was hung at Inverness, and on the gallows he sang the fifty-first Psalm in Gaelic. The two brothers of the murdered peddler, and their sister, who had married a MacPhail, got up a ball at Inverness on the night M'Leod was hung. It was a foolish thing."

DEATH OF THE SHIELDAIG SHOEMAKER AND HIS COMPANIONS AT LOCHINVER.

"It was long after the murder of Grant, the peddler, in a.s.synt, that three men from Shieldaig of Applecross went in their smack to fish with long lines for cod at Lochinver. One of them was a shoemaker. It is said that they came ash.o.r.e to the inn there. After their return to the smack, three days pa.s.sed without any smoke from the vessel, and the people on sh.o.r.e did not know what was the cause of it. So they went to see what was wrong, and they found the three men dead, two of them among the barrels in the hold, and one at the hearth in the fo'castle. They came ash.o.r.e, and a letter was sent to M'Phee, the fishing-officer at Shieldaig of Applecross, reporting the case. Three Shieldaig men went first to Lochinver and brought the vessel home. I saw them as they pa.s.sed Poolewe. Some thought that the three fishermen had had poison given them in the inn. After the disappearance of John Macdonald, the Loch Maree drover, and his two companions, and the murder of Grant the peddler, in a.s.synt, it was considered dangerous for men from Gairloch and the neighbourhood to visit that wild country."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A GAIRLOCH MAN.]

PART III.

NATURAL HISTORY OF GAIRLOCH.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Physical Features 219

II. Climate and Weather 222

III. Anecdotes and Notes 227

IV. Lower Forms of Life 233

V. Mammals of Gairloch 236

VI. Birds of Gairloch 241

VII. Flowering Plants of Gairloch 256

VIII. Sh.e.l.ls of Gairloch. By Rev. John M'Murtrie, M.A. 265

IX. Geology of Loch Maree and Neighbourhood. By William Jolly, F.G.S., F.R.S.E., &c. 271

X. Minerals of Gairloch. By W. Ivison Macadam, F.C.S. Edin. 289

Chapter I.

PHYSICAL FEATURES.

The accompanying map shews the shape and general features of the parish of Gairloch.

Its area is stated by the Director of the Ordnance Survey to be 217,849 acres, _i.e._ fully 340 square miles. The three proprietors state the acreages of their estates (so far as in Gairloch) to be as follows:--

ACRES.

Sir Kenneth S. Mackenzie, Bart. of Gairloch, 162,680 Mrs Liot Bankes of Letterewe and Gruinard, 35,000 Mr Osgood H. Mackenzie of Inverewe, 12,800

These areas make a less total than the Ordnance Survey; the deficiency may arise from the proprietors having measured their estates on the flat without reckoning the differences for alt.i.tudes.

Fisherfield and Gruinard, in the parish of Loch Broom, adjoin Gairloch on the north, and Torridon, in the parish of Applecross, on the south.

Both sides of the sea lochs of Gairloch and Loch Ewe, and the south side of the Bay of Gruinard, often called Loch Gruinard, are in Gairloch.

Between Gairloch and Loch Ewe is the promontory called the North Point, terminating in Rudha Reidh, or Ru Re, and between Loch Ewe and Loch Gruinard the promontory known as the Greenstone Point. The sea-board of Gairloch parish, indented by these sea lochs and skirting these large promontories, measures about one hundred miles.

Gairloch is, roughly speaking, bisected by the glen which holds Loch Maree. This renowned loch has on its north-east side a grand range of mountains "all in a row," viz., Beinn a Mhuinidh, Slioch, Beinn Lair, Meall Mheannidh, and Beinn Aridh Charr; the line of these hills is parallel with Loch Maree.

Further to the north-east is another almost parallel range of mountains, along which the boundary of the parish of Gairloch runs, in some cases including the summits. They are Beinn nan Ramh, Meallan Chuaich, Groban, Beinn Bheag, Mullach Coire Mhic Fhearchair (a spur of Sgurr Ban), Beinn Tarsuinn, A' Mhaighdean, and Beinn Tarsuinn Chaol, or Craig an Dubh Loch. There is on the north side of Meallan Chuaich a little knoll called Torran nan tighearnan, or "the lairds' knoll." Here three properties--Gairloch, Dundonnell, and an estate of the Mathesons of Ardross--meet, and the several lairds could lunch together, each sitting on his own ground.

On the south-west side of the glen of Loch Maree is a cl.u.s.ter of still finer mountains, viz., Beinn Eighe (or Eay), with its spurs or shoulders, Sgurr Ban, Ruadh Stac and Sail Mhor, Meall a Ghuibhais, Beinn a Chearcaill, Beinn an Eoin, Bathais (or Bus) Bheinn, and Beinn Bhreac, a spur of Beinn Alligin in Torridon. One face of Beinn Dearg is also in Gairloch, the rest of it being in Torridon. These mountains are grouped in the form of a crescent, with its convex side facing towards the centre of Loch Maree. Beinn Eighe is one extremity of the crescent, and Beinn Bhreac the other, whilst Beinn Dearg lies in the hollow of it.

There are many lochs in Gairloch smaller than Loch Maree, and many lesser hills, than those I have enumerated. The visitor will best grasp the geography of Gairloch, by remembering that the long valley beginning with Glen Dochartie, continued by Loch Maree, and concluded in Loch Ewe, cuts the parish into two parts by an almost straight line; and that of the twenty mountains of Gairloch, eight are on its north-eastern boundary, five on the north-east side of Loch Maree, and seven to the south-west of the loch. For the heights of the mountains see the table, which shews Beinn Eighe (Eay) to be the monarch of the mountains of Gairloch.