OS1/17/54/186

Continued entries/extra info

[Page] 186
Parish of Kingussie -- County of Inverness

Continued from previous page

Four of the bodies were discovered, and from their position it appeared that the unfortunate men had been retiring to bed when the direful event took place. Captain McPherson was sitting with his coat off on the remains of a bed, leaning forward with his elbows on his Knees, with the one hand grasping the wrist of the other which supported his head. In the other room other two of the party, one of them a Mapherson from Glentruim, lay in each other's arms, half out of bed, with the Greyhounds across their feet. The fourth Angus Macgilorary, foxhunter, was lying upon his back, on the fragments of a long seat, with a thigh broken, one shoe on, a quid of tobacco in his mouth, and covered with stones and turf. Two guns were found on the middle of the floor one of them bent, and the other broken in pieces. The body of the remaining sufferer, Duncan Macfarlane, a man of a nervous temperament, who had jumped up and got out of bed if not out of the house, was found six weeks afterwards, when the snow had abated, lying at a distance of 200 yards, partly undressed. In accounting for this lamentable catastrophe it may be stated that the immence mass of snow that covered the site of the house lay in a Straigh line between a steep part of the hill and a stream that flowed at its base. Beyond the boundaries of this bank the snow was quite thin on sides, and in a few days completely disappeared. The rubbish of the house, the body last found, all lay in the direction of the valley, clearly indicating that the force operated in that direction, which was like wise that in which the wind blew so furiously, thus leading to the inference that an avalanche had destroyed the building, and formed a grave for its unfortunate occupants. This inference is further supported by the fact that, between the time of the catastrophe and the discovery of the last body, an immence mass of snow fell from the same hill and rested at the back of the former building, and was only arrested by the remainder of the mass that had fallen before. " Spey Side Guide.

The following is written along one side of the page.

The Cairn on trace marks the place where he was found. [?]
To be inserted in ink and supplied your initials -
[?] attended to after being [?] and to the purpose. 10. 04. 1869