AN INTEResting FIND.

231

Ballachulish in our neighbourhood. At a depth of ten feet in the "drift" subsoil, underlying six or seven feet of moss, only removed within recent years in the ordinary course of peat-cutting, was found the remains of what, in the far past, must have been a flint instrument manufactory on a large scale. Within an area of twenty or thirty square yards was disclosed several cartloads of flint chippings, manifestly broken off in the manufacture of flint instruments, for we have been able to secure several arrow heads, two roughly finished chisels, and a hammer head of curious shape, with a hole in the centre, which must have cost the maker no small amount of time and trouble in the manipulation. What renders this "find" more interesting is the fact that the material must have been brought to the place of manufacture from a considerable distance, flint being of rare occurrence anywhere in Nether Lochaber. Underlying such a depth of solid moss and drift, such a discovery necessarily carries us back to a race of men who lived in a very remote period indeed; how remote, even geology is as yet unable absolutely to say. We were unfortunately from home at the time the discovery was made, and were thus prevented from examining the whole in situ. This much, however, is certain, that under a diluvial bed of drift, gravel, and sand of upwards of two feet in thickness, underlying a thickness of at least six feet of solid moss, a flint instrument manufactory is found, the work of a people who lived before the deposit of that drift and the growth of that moss. How many thousands and thousands of years ago lived that flintworking race, who, in view of the extreme slowness of geological changes, can say? We know that in the celebrated case of the discovery of flint weapons at Abbeville and elsewhere in France the remains of extinct species of elephant, rhinoceros, and other mammals were found at an immense depth in the drift alongside of flint instruments unquestionably fashioned by human hands. Whether our Ballachulish discovery is to be held as a connecting

link with a people of an antiquity as remote as those of Abbeville, it would be rash positively to assert; but the flint workers, some remains of whose labours have, as we have stated, been recently brought to light in our neighbourhood, must have lived at a period when the face of the country was geologically very different from what it is now; and remembering how slowly as a rule geological changes are brought about, we shall probably be still within the mark, if approximately we fix the era of the earliest flint workers at something like ten thousand years ago, and in the case of Abbeville, Continental archæologists have had no hesitation in suggesting a still remoter antiquity.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Warm showery Summer, disagreeable for the Tourist, but pastorally and agriculturally favourable-Xiphias Gladius, or Sword-Fish, cast ashore during a Midsummer GaleGaribaldi dining on Potatoes and Sword-Fish steaks at Caprera-The General's DrinkMedicinal virtues of an Onion-Nettle Broth-Translation of a New Zealand Maori Song.

"RATHER showery, sir," exclaims the pleasure-seeking butterfly tourist as he stands at his hotel window, or settles himself as comfortably as may be on the box-seat of the coach in the morning. "Not a bit of it, sir," responds the sturdy agriculturist or well-to-do drover; "not a bit of it, sir, the finest growing weather we could have: cattle and sheep getting into condition famously!" [July 1873]. In such a case it is best to avoid declaring positively for either party. In medio tutissimus ibis. Both are right from their individual standpoint; that of the agriculturist and drover being the utilitarian and anti-poetic, while the sentimental tourist, bent on sight-seeing and recreation, very pardonably grumbles that instead of clear skies and refreshing breezes he is as often as not enveloped in mist and small rain. In any case the country is at present most beautiful, and despite the grumblings of a few, who foolishly expect to have "a' the comforts of the Sautmarket" about them whithersoever they wander, such batches of tourists as we forgather with from time to time are in raptures with our glens, and bens, and lochs, and richly wooded shores, as well they may. And never before in the West Highlands were all the conveniences for "touristing" with ease and comfort, and all reasonable despatch, so perfect and so varied.

A tolerably perfect, though not very large specimen of the sword-fish, the Xiphias gladius of ichthyologists, was cast ashore in our neighbourhood during an unusually heavy midsummer gale from the south-west last week. The length of the elongated snout, commonly called the sword or dagger, was two feet seven inches, a really formidable weapon, with which it has been known, whether willingly or unwillingly it would be difficult to say, to perforate the bottom timbers of the stoutest ships, the sword in such cases luckily breaking off as a rule, and thus becoming an immediate as well as an efficient plug or stop-gap to the perforation. It is a more frequent visitor to our shores than our natural history books would lead one to believe, hardly a summer passing but you hear of one or more being caught or cast ashore somewhere. This is the fourth specimen that within twenty years has come under our personal inspection here on the west coast. The largest and finest we ever saw was captured by a well-known Fort-William fisherman, Iack Crùbach, or Lame Jack. If we well remember, we think he told us that somebody gave him a sovereign for it. Its flesh is said to be excellent eating, while its liver affords an oil equal to eel oil in transparency, and of marvellous virtue, it is said, as a medicament. The favourite habitats of the sword-fish are the Sicilian and the Italian shores of the Mediterranean, where, at certain seasons of the year, it is caught in great numbers, the average weight being quite a hundred, and sometimes two hundred pounds or more. We have it in our Common-Place Book that Major Healy, of the yacht "Wildbird," informed us in Fort-William (August 1869) that he had just returned from the Mediterranean; had called on Garibaldi at Caprera, and dined with him on potatoes and sword-fish steaks, which the gallant Major pronounced excellent. We may state, as something curious, that while the Major at said dinner had his choice of very good wines, with lots of capital bottled "Bass" from England, the General himself

drank a funny decoction composed of Marsala and water-halfand-half-in which a large onion, sliced lemon-wise, had been steeping for the whole previous night-a drink which the Major tasted, and in very emphatic phrase declared to be "beastly," but which he shrewdly guessed had something to do with the General's rheumatism and gout. Any of our readers having a tendency thitherwards might do worse than take the hint. There may be something in it, for we recollect, when a little boy in Morven, that an onion was somehow considered a panpharmacon, a perfect panacea-good for any and every ailment. That the mediaval herbalist, like the medieval alchemist, was often a quack is very likely. In many instances he could hardly be otherwise when his profession was in such repute; but it is a question if our revulsion has not gone too far; if our modern medicinists do not rather much overlook, too contemptuously ignore, the inherent virtues, as to human ailments, of roots and herbs and "flowers of the field." An old lady in our neighbourhood, shrewd and intelligent beyond most of her class, told us not long ago as she was cutting nettles by the roadside, as an evening bonne bouche for her cow, that Stewart of Invernahyle, Sir Walter Scott's friend, made it a point every spring to have nettle broth or soup on three consecutive days about the season of the vernal equinox, which he religiously believed acted as a safe and efficient diuretic for the remainder of the year. From Mairi Bhàn, Invernahyle's sister, the

"Mhairi Bhàn gur barrail thu"

of Macintyre's well-known song, are descended at least two Presbyterian clergymen, though the Invernahyles themselves were strongly Episcopalian-ourselves, namely, and the Rev. Mr. Cameron, Free Church minister of Ardersier. And the writing of the word "Episcopalian" above reminds us of the fact that the titular dignity of the Bishopric of Argyll and the Isles is at present