if we had had something to swallow with
the same, even a crust of bread or a biscuit,
would have found the flesh delicious. But
man cannot live on goose alone, however
young, however tender. How did we
crave a snap of bread, and a drop of
whisky, or tea, to wash it down!

Though we had goose galore, and eggs,
and milk, that was all Loch Skifort could
do for us; and really it might have been
much worse, and we were ungrateful beings
to crouch frowningly and mutter about
starvation. Hamish Shaw was the bitterest,
for he was out of tobacco, and to him, as to
many another water-dog, life without
tobacco was torture. He tried tea, till that
was quite exhausted. Then he attempted
a slice of boot-leather, and rather liked it,
only, if he had persisted in smoking that
kind of stuff, he would soon have had to go
barefoot. The Wandered recommended peat,
but the idea was rejected with indignation.

Just as the weather was beginning to
clear, a large ship put into the loch, for a
rest after weeks of bad weather. By boarding
her we procured a few supplies—a little
tea, some tobacco, and a number of weeviled
biscuits. The presence of a large vessel
acts like magic in a solitary place. No
sooner had the ship entered the loch, than
the region, which had previously seemed
uninhabited, became suddenly populous,
and numerous skiffs rowed out, laden with
natives. The skipper did a "smart" thing
with the natives on that occasion. Having
need of hands to get in his anchors, which
had dragged, he paid them off in biscuits
of the finest quality, telling them to return
next day, and (if they pleased) he would
take in exchange for biscuits any quantity
of dried fish they liked to bring. The
natives were of course delighted, and the
skipper secured a splendid lot of fish for
the southern market. But imagine the
disgust of the poor deluded Celts on
examining their prize of dearly-coveted
bread. The biscuits were full of weevils,
and worth scarcely a penny a pound.

"All this far you have been digressing!"
cries the impatient reader. "We have
heard more than we want to hear about
ducks and geese, and hunger and thirst;
but what of the red deer, the eagle, the
salmon, the hooper, the seal?" Well, as to
the red deer, we may or may not in our time
have been the death of the forest king, his
antlers may or may not be hanging over
the chimney-piece in our smoking-room,
but we did not get so much as a glimpse of
a deer in the wilds of Uist. The salmon
had not yet ascended the rivers, and the
wild swans were rearing that year's young
in the distant north. More than one eagle
we saw, floating among the mountain peaks
on the eastern coast, and dwarfed by
distance to the size of a wind-hover; but
mighty would have been the hunter who
could reach and slay the sky-loving birds
in their glory. Indeed, who ever killed an
eagle in its full pride of strength and
flight? It is the sickly, half-starved,
feeble bird that inadvertently crosses the
shepherd's gun, and yields a lean and
unwholesome body to the stuffer's art. Such
an one we saw low down on the crags of
Ben Eval, passing with a great heavy beat
of the wing from rock to rock, now hovering
for an instant over some object among
the heather, then rising painfully and
drifting along on the wind. We had no
gun with us that day, or we think that, by
cautiously stalking among the heights, we
might have made the bird our own;
our hearts were sad for the great creature,
with that fierce hunger tearing at its
heart, while, doubtless, the yellow eyes
burnt terribly through the gathering films
of death. Out of the hollow crags
gathered six ravens, rushing with hoarse
shrieks at the fallen king, and flying
with horrible yells whenever he turned
towards them with sharp talon and opened
beak; attracted by the noise, flocked
from all the surrounding pastures the
hideous hooded crows, with their sick
grey coats and sable heads, cawing like
devils; these, too, rushed at the eagle,
to be beaten back by one wave of the
wrathful wings. It was a sad scene—
power eclipsed on the very throne of its
glory, taunted and abused by carrion,

Sick in the world's regard, wretched and low,

yet preserving the mournful shadow of its
dignity and kingly glory. Every movement
of the eagle was still kingly, nor did
it deign to utter a sound; while the crows
and ravens were hideous in every gesture,
mean, grovelling, and unwieldy, and their
damnable cries made the echoes hideous.
Round the shoulder of the hill floated the
eagle, with the imps of darkness at his
back. We fear his day of death, so nigh
at hand, was to be very sad. Better that
the passing shepherd should put a bullet
through his heart and carry him away to
deck some gentleman's hall, than that he
should fall spent yonder, insulted at his
last gasp, torn at by the fiends, seeing the
leering raven whet his beak for slaughter,