the pot, and placed between two folds of thin cotton or muslin, and applied to the eye at bed-time, kept in its place, of course, by a handkerchief or other band tied round the head. In cases of weak or inflamed eyes from any cause, this is reckoned, in this and the surrounding districts, "the sovereignest thing on earth." And one can quite understand how tea leaves, at once cooling and astringent, employed in this way, may benefit a hot and inflamed eye. It is a simple application at all events, and always at hand; and when more pretentious remedies are not readily attainable, one would be unwisely prejudiced, if not actually foolish, to suffer long without giving it a fair trial. A less simple and less readily available cure for sore eyes is the following in old Gaelic verse:— LEIGHEAS SUL. Luidh Challum-Chille agus spéir, Bainne atharla nach do rug laodh ; Bruich iad a's càirich air brèid, S'cuir sid rid' shùil aig tra-nèin, Air an Athair, am Mac agus Spiorad nan gràs, 'S air Ostal na seirce; bi'dh do shùilean slàn Mu'n eirich a gheallach 's mu'n till an làn. In English, literally (Take of) St. Columba's wort and dandelion, (Of) mint and a perfect plant of marsh trefoil, (Take of) milk from the udder of a quey (That is heavy with calf, but that has not actually calved), Boil, and spread the mixture on a cloth ; Put it to your eyes at noon-tide, In the name of Father, Son, and the Spirit of Grace, And in the name of (John) the Apostle of Love, and your eyes Before the next rising of the moon, before the turning of next We were recently shown a great curiosity—a dirk sheath said to be made of human skin. Its history, as related to us by the A CURIOUS DIRK SHEATH. 77 owner, is as follows:-In the summer of 1746, about two months after the battle of Culloden, a detachment of Saighdearan Dearge, red (coated) soldiers, or Government troops, was passing through Lochaber and Appin on its way to Inveraray, the men amusing themselves, and enlivening the tedium of the march, by burning and plundering as they had opportunity. When passing through the Strath of Appin, a young woman was observed in a field, busily engaged in the evening milking her cow. A sergeant or corporal of the band leaped over the wall into the field, and putting his musket to his shoulder, shot the cow dead upon the spot; after which gallant exploit he began the most brutal ill-treatment of the woman. She, however, defended herself with great courage, and as she retreated towards the shore, she picked up a stone, which she hurled at her persecutor with such good aim that it struck him full on the forehead, stretching him for the moment senseless upon the grass. She then fled towards a boat that was afloat on the beach, and leaping in, rapidly rowed towards Eilean-bhaile-nagobhar, an island at a considerable distance from the mainland, where she was safe from further annoyance. The tradition is so minute and precise that the heroine's name is given as Silas-NicCholla, or Julia MacColl; and our informant declared himself to be her great-grandson. The sergeant, stunned and bleeding, was picked up by his comrades, and carried to the place of halt for the night, near Tigh-an Ribbi, where, before morning, he died of his wound. His body was buried in the old churchyard of Airds, but was not allowed to rest there. On the disappearance of the soldiers from the district, the body was exhumed by the people, and cast into the sea; not, however, before a brother of Silas-NicCholla flayed the right arm from the shoulder to the elbow, and of the skin thus flayed was made a dirk sheath, and this sheath we saw and handled with no little curiosity a week or two ago. The sheath is of a dark brown colour, limp and soft, with no ornament except a small virle of brass at the point, and a thin edging of the same metal round the orifice, on which is inscribed the date "1747," and the initials "D. M. C." There is no reason, we suppose, to doubt the genuineness of the article, though we hardly expected to find human skin-if it be human skin-of such thickness. It may, however, be partly the result of the tanning process which it probably underwent, and of time. In connection with this strange relic of a past age may be stated the extraordinary fact-incredible, indeed, if it were not thoroughly authenticated— that during the horrors of the French Revolution there was a tannery of human skins for many months in operation at Meudon. The raw material, so to speak, of this strange manufacture, was the skins of the scores and hundreds that were daily guillotined. It is asserted that "it made excellent wash-leather." Montgaillard, a prominent character of the period, who had the curiosity to visit the works, and saw the tanning process in full operation, makes the following curious observation :— "The skin of the men was superior in toughness and quality to shamoy; that of the women good for almost nothing, so soft in texture, and easily torn, like rotten linen!" We have had some rebellious revolutions, civil wars, and all the rest of it in Great Britain and Ireland, with their attendant iniquities, bad enough in all conscience, but the French may fairly boast of having beat us; a tannery of human skins is a venture and enterprise that no one has been pushing and patriotic enough yet to undertake amongst us, even when axe and gallows wrought their hardest in days happily long since passed away. CHAPTER XV. The Ring-Dove-A Pet Ring-Dove-Its Death-Shenstone-The Belone Vulgaris or GarFish-A Rat and a Kilmarnock Night-Cap-Extraordinary Koebuck's Head at Ardgour. THE weather [October 1870] with us here on the West Coast continues wonderfully mild and open for the latter end of October. Were it not, indeed, for an occasional sprinkling of snow along the mountain summits of an early morning, and finding as you wander about the pathways everywhere bestrewn with fallen leaves, we might find some difficulty in persuading ourselves, in weather so bright and summer-like, that the season was at all so far advanced as it really is, that 1870, with its immediate predecessor-the anni mirabiles of the century-had already so nearly run its allotted course. A striking proof of the exceptional mildness of the weather since mid-August is the fact that a young wood-pigeon or ring-dove (Columba palumbus), not yet nearly full fledged, was brought to us a few days ago from a nest in the woods of Coirrechadrachan. We have kept it with the view of rearing it as a pet, though the chances are all against us, the produce of such late incubations having always less robustness and vitality about them than birds hatched in spring or early summer. There is a little difficulty, as a rule, in rearing the ring-dove, and getting it to become even troublesomely tame, until it purrs and kur-doo's about your feet, and rubs himself against you with all the familiarity and empressement of a kitten begging for its morning allowance of milk. It is, however, exceedingly quarrelsome and pugnacious among other pets, and so jealous of any attention bestowed on any one but itself, that it will pout and sulk for half a day if it considers itself injured in this respect; and yet so little grateful is it for any amount of kindness you may show, it that when full-grown it will take the first opportunity that offers to escape into its native wild woods, never more to look near you. One that we reared from the nest several years ago had one very amusing habit. Every morning after being fed he would watch the nursery door, which opened off the kitchen, until he got it ajar, when he would leap upon the dressing-table and spend a couple of hours in admiring himself in the looking-glass, preening his feathers and strutting about and kur-dooing to his alter ego with the most beauish, self-satisfied air imaginable, the poor bird being evidently under the impression that his own reflection was a Mademoiselle Ring-dove of irresistible attractions, and whom he persuaded himself he was on these occasions busily courting in the manner most approved of amongst the most fashionable circles of ring-dovedom. His death was a singular one. A large Aylesbury duck, with whom he used to have constant quarrels, he being invariably in fault and always the aggressor, got a hold of him one day near her ducking pond, and in a scuffle, which the ring-dove himself had causelessly provoked, dragged him into the water, and beat him with her wings until he was, like Ophelia, "drown'd, drown'd." We never see these very handsome wild birds, or hear their soft melodious cooing of summer eve from the neighbouring woods, but we think of Shenstone's beautiful lines "I have found out a gift for my fair: I have found where the wood-pigeons breed; She will say 'twas a barbarous deed: For he ne'er could be true, she averr'd, Who could rob a poor bird of its young; "I have heard her with sweetness unfold That it ever attended the bold, And she called it the Sister of Love. |