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[Page] 81
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tore at the waves & we made barely any
progress. However, at last they ran the
bow on a shelving beach, about a mile
from the hotel. We were by no means high
& dry, so there was nothing for it but to leap
& trust to getting off with nothing worse than
wet feet. Mary & I went first. The sailor
-men insisted on helping Jocelyn with the
result that she probably was the wettest of
the three. We made our way to the hotel
& were not at all favourably impressed by
its appearance. Our luggage lay afar off
on the beach until a cart could be got for
it. So there was nothing else to be done
than rid ourselves of our lower garments
& slip into bed! When our boxes &c. did
turn up many of their contents were soaking,
for the rain had got in! An unexhilarating
start for our adventure! However, after
a couple of days the weather cleared,
the hotel though not first class, proved not
as bad as it looked, & the scenery & walks
to enjoy it all around were all that we
could desire. Fishing there was prac:
:tically none, except on the day after
a flood. Though there are several miles

of water there are no trout in it and only one
good salmon pool. I had some luck for the
day after we arrived I raised three salmon
in the foresaid pool, hooked two, & had one of
these on for a few minutes & the other for a quarter
of an hour. Early in our stay I made
the acquaintance of an excellent old sea-
-fisher Mr John MacLeod, a man of much
information & well read, who had been at one
time a fairly prosperous "Scotch Draper in Birmingham" but
had failed to be a permanent success, and
returned to his native hamlet to end his
days. He had a good boat with a mast
& sail and we had several delightful days out
fishing with him. The office of works left to me
the superintendence of the completion of the upper
broch at Glenbeg and I was fortunate enough
to find in the courtyard, all the holes for the
wooden posts, which had supported a lean-
-to roof resting on a scarcement. Such scarcements
exist in nearly all brochs, at a height of about
8 ft. [feet] above the ground level, and while I have always
regarded the existence of post holes as certain,
no one had found them. This discovery will
throw a new light on the broch mystery.
From Glenelg at the end of a fortnight we
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