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backs on the earthen floor, and we acted on this suggestion for a little. When we reached Loch Hourn we got into a large boat rowed by four men, generally singing Gaelic songs to keep time. My elder sister and I, who had splendid voices, used to sing the whole way, each placed on a bench beside one of the rowers. After about eight miles' rowing, we arrived at Barrisdale, one of our tacksmen's houses, where we generally spent a night. A precious night it was! The governess and three of us children occupied two box-beds in the parlour proper, the wall-paper of which was covered with roses. Immediately after breakfast we all got into the boat again to row round to Inverie by Loch Nevis. But on the occasion of my early remembrance there was a terrific storm. The maids were groaning and screaming with fear, and the men declared that we children must all sit in the bottom of the boat. When about half-way, it was resolved that we should leave the boat and go across country to Inverie. How the rest of the party accomplished the five miles, I do not know; but I was packed up in a plaid on a Highlander's back, and the sister a year younger than I was carried by the nurse.

Our house at Inverie was a very curious one. A considerable portion of it was built like an ordinary house of stone and lime; but the dining-room, drawing-room, and four bedrooms were built by my father on the old-fashioned wattled system. Magnificent beams of Scotch fir sprang from the clay floor to a roof with similar beams. Between the beams was regular basket-work of hazel-wood. The outside of the walls and the roof were slated. The front door opened into this part of the house, and opposite it was another door entering into the stone-and-lime part.

The scenery of this part of Knoidart is perfectly beautiful. There were slightly sloping grass-hills at the back of our house rising to perhaps two thousand feet high; with North Morar in front, nearly shutting in the loch, and the mountains of Rum in the far distance.

The return from Inverie was often made over Mambarrisdale a low pass between hills, and about five miles long. How the elder members of the family travelled, I cannot tell; but my next sister and I were each put in a creel one on each side of a pony, over whose back we could talk and play together nicely. On these journeys there was always plenty of men at hand to carry us if we wished.

My mother was a daughter of Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, and before her marriage, at twenty-two, had always lived in Edinburgh. On coming to the Highlands she was somewhat bewildered by the sort of life she had to lead. Instead of going to shops for butcher -meat, whole animals were brought into the larder at once; and, that she might really understand how to arrange the pieces for use at table, she got a sheep cut up exactly as if it had been a bullock. The smallness of the sirloins and rounds that this produced may be imagined, but she learned her lesson. Soon after she went north the housekeeper said she was short of needles. To my mother's amazement she heard that none could be got nearer than Inverness, forty-two miles distant! The needles being an absolute necessity, a man with a cart and horse had to be sent for them.

Our education was of the most practical kind. At five years of age we were formally taken into