Memories

Note A
The Wolf of Badenoch

From the fact that the lands of Badenoch were so long held by my ancestors, the Comyns of Badenoch, it has often been assumed that the fierce “Wolfe of Badenoch” was a Comyn. This, happily, was not the case, though he held broad lands wrested from the Comyns, and dwelt in their old Castle of Lochindorb.

The ruthless Wolf was Lord Alexander Stewart, fourth son of King Robert the Second, who died A.D. 1390, by whom he was created Earl of Buchan, when that title was forfeited by Comyn in 1374. He was also made Earl of Ross in right of his wife, Eufame, Countess of Ross, in right of whom he held the Thanedom and Castle of Dingwall, the Baronies of Skye and the Lewes, lands in Caithness, Sutherland, Inverness, Nairn, Athol, Banffshire, and Perth, the latter including Forgandenny and Kinfauns, while from his royal father he obtained, besides Badenoch, Abernethy, and other lands of the Comyns, those of Robert de Chisholm in Inverness-shire, and Strathaven in Banffshire, and was created King’s Lieutenant for all the North of Scotland. So he was a most powerful noble, who could brook no contradiction.

When he found that his wife Eufame bore him no children, he sought another love, Mariota, daughter of Athyn, by whom he had five illegitimate sons, Sir Alexander, Sir Andrew, Walter, James, and Duncan. These all grew up as fierce as their father, each drawing to himself a company of wild Highlanders, reckless freebooters who carried fire and sword throughout the country. The eldest stormed the Castle of Kildrummy, which belonged to the Countess of Mar, and either compelled or prevailed on her to become his wife, whereupon he assumed the title of Earl of Mar. After this rude wooing, he employed his energies in the service of his country, and was twice ambassador to England.

But the chapter in the Wolf’s history which chiefly affected Morayshire was when, having incurred the censure of the Church for forsaking his wife, he in revenge took possession of the Bishop of Moray’s lands in Badenoch, whereupon he was solemnly excommunicated. To avenge this step, he swooped down from his mountain stronghold at Lochindorb, burnt the town of Forres, with the Church of St. Lawrence and the manor of the Archdeacon, and a month later dealt likewise with Elgin, which, being almost entirely built of wood, was quickly consumed, as were also the Church of St. Giles, “the House of God, ‘Domus Dei,’ near Elgyn, eighteen noble and beautiful manses of the canons and chaplains, and the noble and highly adorned Church of Moray, the delight of the country and ornament of the kingdom, with all the books, charters, and other goods of the country placed therein.”

Eventually the proud Wolf submitted to the Church, and by special commission from the Bishop of Moray to Lord Walter Trail, Bishop of St. Andrews, he was absolved from the sentence of excommunication, in presence of his royal brother and many great nobles at Perth, outside the doors of the Church of the Predicate Brothers, and afterwards before the High Altar, on condition that he should make satisfaction to the Church of Moray, and also that he should send to Rome to obtain the Pope’s special absolution.

He died in 1394, and was buried in the choir of the Cathedral Church of Dunkeld, where a mutilated but still stately monument of a knight recumbent in full armour bears his name as “Senescallus Comes de Buchan et Dominus de Badenoch, bonæ memoriæ.”

Probably in no part of Scotland has the whole face of Nature been so entirely changed within the last four hundred years, as in “The Laich of Moray,” namely, that low-lying portion of the county of Elgin or Moray traversed by the railway which connects Aberdeen with Inverness.

In comparing Moray of the present day with the ancient province of Morayland, we must first of all remember how very much larger was the tract of country formerly bearing this name, and which included the present counties of Inverness, Nairn, and Elgin, extending eastward to Buchan and Mar, and south along the valley of the Spey as far as Badenoch. Thus, when King Robert Bruce erected his lands in Moray into an earldom, they extended from Fochabers on the east to Glengarry and Glenelg on the western sea-coast. Early overrun by Norsemen, and often invaded by the Danes, Morayland has ever held a prominent position in the history of Scotland, and the blood of the old sea-kings doubtless accounts for much of the turbulence of the Moray men of old, and the vigour on which they pride themselves to this day.

Of their ancient turbulence there is proof enough in the record of kingly murders here perpetrated; for though history goes to prove that Macbeth killed King Duncan in fair open fight near Elgin, there is little doubt that King Malcolm the First and King Duffus were both murdered at the Castle of Forres, and a certain King Donald was slain in the same district.

In short, the men of Moray ever strove so hard for independence that it has been said to puzzle antiquarians to decide whether at length Scotland annexed Morayland, or Moray absorbed all the rest of Scotland! That the former was the true solution must, however, be conceded; inasmuch as we find that, A.D. 1160, King Malcolm IV., having conquered the men of Moray, endeavoured to break their power by transplanting large bodies into other counties, extending from Caithness in the north to Galloway in the south, thereby, of course, greatly benefiting these other races!

Having once obtained a footing in the province, these Scottish kings showed themselves so well pleased with it, that they established royal castles at Forres, Elgin, and Banff, and had other hunting-seats besides. The ecclesiastical powers also showed a full appreciation of a climate which has ever been accounted nearer to that of Devonshire than of any other part of Britain—in fact, local tradition gives it credit for forty days of fine weather in the twelvemonth in excess of any other part of Scotland.

Although always noted for this excellent climate, and also for the exceeding fertility of its soil, its agriculture appears to have continued greatly inferior to that of the Southern Lowlands till the beginning of the present century; so that Morayshire farmers may with just pride point to its present high state of cultivation and the perfection of their cattle as among the most notable changes of Moray.

As regards cultivation, Moray now acknowledges no superior in Britain, though she admits Lincoln and Norfolk to be her worthy rivals; while, as regards her herds of polled cattle, the Smithfield prize-list tells its tale year by year, and Morayshire farmers will not soon forget the unprecedented circumstance that the two finest beasts in the Smithfield show for 1881, selected to compete for the Champion Medal^[75] (the highest honour that can be attained by a British farmer) were both bred and exhibited by the same man, and that he hailed from the Laich of Moray!

Altogether, there is a good deal to justify the pride with which the many Moray men scattered all over the earth ever speak of this their special fatherland, and their innate conviction that the world itself could not get on without “the Moray loons.”^[76] The feeling was admirably exemplified by the reply of a Morayshire gardener when asked his opinion of the English among whom his lot was cast. “Weel,” said he, “I’ve nae great faut tae find with the Sassenach, but I maun remark that for meenisters or gairdeners, or onything needing head-wark, ye maun come tae us in the North!”

They will not, however, always give full credit even to the said ministers, for I remember the comment of an old man who kept my brother’s lodge, and whose verdict on his minister was that he was of no more account than the figure 9 with the tail cut off!

Craving forgiveness of all southern readers for quoting (of course sympathetically!) this tribute to the dear land which gave me birth, I would now draw attention to some really remarkable changes in the relations of flood and fell, land and water, which have here been effected, partly by drainage and partly by natural causes, and also to various alterations in the fauna of the province.

In the old historical days, vast tracts of the land now under cultivation were all beast-haunted forest, wherein wolves lingered long after they had been exterminated in more accessible regions. There were also great expanses of marsh-land dotted with numerous fresh-water lochs, while the coast was intersected by tidal channels and harbours, some of which have wholly vanished, while others are so altered as to render it difficult to trace their ancient boundaries.

Under the head of vanished waters, we may class the ancient lochs of Cotts, Inchstellie, Inverlochty, Keam, Outlet, Rose-isle, the Laveroch Loch, and the great Loch of Spynie, all of which have disappeared within the last two centuries, chiefly under the prosaic influence of drainage.

By far the largest of these, and the most important loch in the province of Moray, was that of Spynie, which has undergone such a singular succession of changes as to make its history one of unique interest. In the records of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it figures as an estuary of the sea—a secure harbour of refuge, on whose shores stood the ancient burgh of Spynie—a fisher-town, whose inhabitants were vassals of those mighty lords temporal and spiritual, the Bishops of Moray.

Strange to say, as years rolled on, the ceaseless labour of the waves (aided by the rivers Lossie and Spey, which supplied a multitude of great boulders and masses of gravel) resulted in the formation along the coast of such enormous breakwaters in the form of great terraced banks of huge shingle that, by about the fifteenth century, the sea at last found itself excluded from the harbour by its own work.

Thenceforward the isolated loch gradually changed from salt water to brackish, and then became fresh. No longer tenanted by sea-fish and oysters, fresh-water creatures began to appear and to multiply. As the waters expanded more and more, they overspread the cultivated lands on every side, transforming them to sedgy swamps, which soon were peopled by shy, man-fearing wild creatures, and became the favourite breeding-ground of all manner of water-fowl—a true paradise for naturalists and sportsmen.

Towards the close of the eighteenth century the neighbouring proprietors united in such energetic efforts to recover their lost lands that extensive drainage-works were commenced, and the area of water greatly reduced. But such difficulties were encountered that, for the first half of the last century, the Loch of Spynie held its place as a most attractive feature in the landscape, as its blue waters faithfully mirrored the noble old tower of the Bishop’s Palace, and offered a resting-place to immense flocks of wild swans, wild geese, and rare birds innumerable. Many a day of delight have we spent among those reedy inlets, where all my brothers taught themselves the natural history of their own home ere seeking wider fields for sport in distant lands.

But about the year 1860 agricultural interest carried the day, and the prospective value of the reclaimable lands lent new energy to the proprietors. Now only one little corner of blue lake remains to tell of the vanished waters—a little lakelet covering about eighty acres, with reedy shores extending over half as much more. But all the rest is transformed into rich arable land, beautiful only to the eye of the farmer—a dead level, which for some years waved golden in the autumn sunlight with heavy wheat-crops. But Californian competition having taught the Moray farmers to rely rather on their beasts than on their grain, turnips now carry the day, and afford cover for the more commonplace game which has replaced the strange and interesting creatures, now for ever departed.

Both the climate and the soil of “the Laich of Moray” rank exceptionally high. Of the former, as I have already observed, it is locally said to have forty days more sunshine in the year than any other part of Scotland. The old records tell that in the grievous famine which caused so much suffering in the end of the sixteenth century, Moray alone was exempt, and that meal-merchants came all the way from Forfarshire to buy the surplus produce, for which they paid very heavily, and, moreover, had the great cost and toil of transport across the Grampians.

In the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries there was a grievous period of famine. For seven years the harvests were so bad that many of the poorest folk literally died of starvation. 1740, 1782, 1799, and 1800 were also famine years, and though in each case Morayshire fared better than the neighbouring counties, the sufferings of the people were very serious.

Even in normal years there was often grievous scarcity, for up to the middle of the eighteenth century turnips and potatoes were only known as garden vegetables; they were not grown as field-crops, and there was no sown grass. Cattle wandered over the stubble-fields and moors, and picked up a scanty living till the snow drove them to the byres, where they were kept alive on straw, marsh hay, and rushes. Sometimes the poor starving beasts were bled that their starving owners might keep themselves alive.

In Sir Robert Gordon’s accounts of his housekeeping at Dunrobin, when he was guardian to his nephew, the Earl of Sutherland, he enters orders to kill red deer in April and May (when the meat is unfit to eat), because household meal was exhausted. It was not till about 1760 that wheat was extensively grown, and that the clover, ryegrass, and turnips, now so abundant, began to be generally cultivated.

In those days, when our smart forefathers were so gaily apparelled with fine lace at breast and wrist, powdered periwig and cocked hat (terribly inconvenient in windy weather),^[77] the peasantry were looked upon simply as slaves, bound to the soil, bought and sold with it. They were ill-housed, ill-fed, ill-clothed. To them a bad harvest surely brought famine, and famine brought pestilence, and marshfever and ague annually claimed many victims.

Sheriff Cosmo Innes told me that his own father had told him how the Highlanders who came in bands to shear his harvests at Leuchars and Dunkirty used generally to take home with them a shaking ague from working in the marshy land. Now, thanks to the farmer and his drainage, ague and intermittent fever have been banished from bonnie Moray.

While Spynie’s triple change from sea-harbour to fresh-water lake and from lake to corn-land was gradually taking place in the neighbourhood of Elgin, an equally remarkable transformation occurred along the coast between Forres and Nairn, whereby a broad tract of about four thousand acres of rich alluvial soil was overwhelmed by drifting sands forming a strange belt of desert. Prior to the winter of 1694 and the spring of 1695, this estate was so fertile as to be commonly called “the granary of Moray,” but is now known only as the Culbin Sandhills—a most lamentable example of what strange freaks Nature can occasionally indulge in! It is now a most desolate region of yellow hillocks, composed only of the very finest pale sea-sand, always in movement, and for the most part drifting eastward, stirred by every breath of wind, and carried along in clouds, or running down the hillsides from their summits in trickles, like rills of running water.

A walk on the pale, phantom hills is like a scene in some strange dream, where the very ground beneath one’s feet is all unstable, and runs away from one’s tread. Some of these great mounds are occasionally upwards of a hundred feet in height, and from such a summit we obtain a strange and most eerie view—nothing on every side but a most desolate, dreary waste of barren sand; but even as we mount our steps are loosening the sand beneath us, and inviting the play of the wind which, perchance, ere the morrow has swept the hillock and sportively scattered its atoms over the country miles away.

On the lesser hills there is a sprinkling of dry, tufted bent—that harshest of grasses—but the larger hills are entirely devoid of any vestige of vegetation, and one marvels how even the snails subsist, whose bright-coloured, delicate shells are here so numerous. But though food seems scarce, rabbits and hares contrive to flourish (the latter, however, have of late years greatly diminished in numbers). These in their turn provide an abundant larder for numerous foxes, to whom these lonely solitudes afford blissful hunting-grounds, and both the foxes and rabbits of Culbin are noted for their remarkable size.

Speaking of Morayshire rabbits, the trapping and shooting of which is now so serious a care, it is interesting to note the relation between their increase and the destruction of all the rabbit foes which gamekeepers account “vermin.” In the early part of this century all such wild creatures were allowed to hunt unmolested; consequently, although rabbits were tolerably numerous along the sea-coast, they were so scarce in the woods that their occasional appearance was noted with interest.

This was especially the case on my father’s estate of Altyre, on the Findhorn River; but about the year 1816 he engaged an English keeper for the express purpose of killing down vermin. The first year’s bag showed a return of sixty-five foxes, and almost innumerable wild cats, hunting domestic cats, weasels, and pole-cats. A second, third, and fourth year’s work went far towards clearing the woods of these depredators, greatly to the benefit of the neighbouring poultry yards.

Then it began to be observed that there were a few rabbits on the estate. In the second year there was no mistake about it. In the third, my father bagged twenty couple in a single field. As years wore on they increased so as to become a pest. It was almost like the story of New Zealand. All the young oaks, so carefully planted, were devoured, and soon the damage to the woods was estimated at several thousand pounds.

In the year 1840 William Reader, a Norfolk rabbitcatcher, was engaged, and in the first year, between April and September, he killed nearly seven thousand rabbits in the Altyre woods. The annual return for the two following years was about two thousand, and the number of rabbits was soon so far diminished that the services of the rabbitcatcher were dispensed with. Not for long, however, for soon the increase of the foe, and the destruction of valuable young wood, necessitated his recall, and from that day to the end of the century his work was never-ending. Then, handing over his work to his son, he retired on a pension from the laird. He died in 1902, in his eighty-eighth year, after sixty-two years of faithful service. It is worthy of note that during his brief absence the rabbits had contrived to make head again, notwithstanding a corresponding increase of vermin, the return for one year showing twenty foxes and a great multitude of weasels.

In that same year, 1840, the first squirrel was shot in the Altyre woods by my brother John, then a lad of fourteen, and the unknown animal was shown to the English trapper as a great curiosity. It was, however, assumed to have been a tame squirrel escaped from captivity, as these beautiful but mischievous little creatures were never seen north of the Grampians till about the year 1844, when they were introduced by Lady Lovat, and turned loose in Beaufort woods as pretty and ornamental little innocents.

Whether these were the progenitors of all the devouring host which now make havoc in the northern forests, or whether another couple were turned out by Lady Cawdor in the woods round Cawdor Castle, is not certain; but this I know, that when in the autumn of 1855 Sir Alexander Gordon-Cumming caught a glimpse of the first squirrel which appeared on his lawn at Altyre, he could scarcely believe he had seen aright, but with the instinct of a keen forester, he very quickly despatched this poor little precursor of the destructive army which so quickly followed.

The notion that this solitary visitor was only the herald of a rapidly multiplying host of immigrants was not at first realised, and the keepers, ever on the alert to destroy all game-consuming vermin, took small heed of these pretty newcomers, which, of course, were deemed very interesting strangers. Soon, however, it became known that the Beaufort and Cawdor woods were suffering severely from their depredations, and that rewards had been offered for every squirrel’s head produced.

All too quickly the nibbling armies made their way through Lord Moray’s forests of Darnaway, and, crossing the Findhorn River, invaded the Altyre woods, and there finding congenial quarters, increased and multiplied so rapidly that soon the forester reported very serious damage, and consequent pecuniary loss. The young shoots and buds of all coniferous trees find especial favour with these busy and most wasteful foragers, who destroy far more than they consume, leaping from bough to bough to secure some bud or cone more attractive than that which they have just tasted and dropped, so that the whole ground is thickly strewn with their rejected fragments.

Not content with this wholesale destruction of young shoots, the squirrels have a fancy for barking trees of a considerable size within eight or ten feet of the summit, which is so enfeebled by loss of sap as to offer small resistance to the next gale, so the snapping of many a good tree is laid to the account of these depredators. Even when the wounds heal over, and the tree appears to have recovered, it carries within it ineffaceable traces of its early sufferings, and when, twenty years later, it is sold as timber, the buyer finds to his cost how serious has been the damage done. Especially do young larch-plantations suffer in the early spring, when the winter store of nuts has run short. Then the ground is thickly strewn with the tender young shoots, and, when weary of these, the foliage is devoured; so, what with squirrels overhead and rabbits below, the poor trees have no lack of foes.

Ere long the increase of the squirrels in the Altyre woods was so marked as to necessitate the employment of an extra man, whose sole work was to destroy the invaders (and it required a good marksman to bring down these agile little creatures, in their never-ending games at hide-and-seek). Though the warfare has thenceforth been incessant, each autumn is marked by a special campaign, when the squirrels seek a change of diet, and, forsaking the fir-woods, assemble in force among the oaks, beeches, and other hard woods, to gather their winter store of acorns, nuts, and beech-mast. Then the squirrel-slayer and his assistants find their best opportunity, and wage war unsparingly.

I have no return of the annual squirrel-slaughter on the estate previous to 1870, but from that year till 1880 the average annual destruction was a thousand head. It has now been reduced to about one hundred.

This refers only to the Altyre woods. In those round Cawdor Castle the damage done was so great that a reward of threepence per head was offered, and for upwards of twenty years this price was paid on an annual average of one thousand one hundred squirrels. In the sixteen years between 1862 and 1878, a total of fourteen thousand one hundred and twenty-three squirrels were killed, for which was paid a sum of £213, 13s. And still they abound!

Strange to say, in the adjacent forests round Darnaway Castle these pretty pests were very rare till about 1875, when their numbers rapidly increased. The forester attributes this fact to their preference for fir-trees, “from prop-wood to spar-wood size,” and to the fact that, till recently, there were few trees in the forest of this favoured size. The fastidious creatures show a marked preference for young trees of vigorous growth and full of sap. Having once established themselves, the prolific invaders increased and multiplied so rapidly that it was found necessary to put on an extra keeper for their special destruction, besides offering a reward of one penny per head for every squirrel slain, notwithstanding which Darnaway still adds from four hundred to one thousand four hundred to the annual return of little victims. The total in 1901 was one thousand three hundred and fifty-eight. And the war of extermination has to be kept up steadily, in order to prevent a truly alarming increase.

At Beaufort Castle the annual return is almost always upwards of a thousand. In 1898 and 1899 it rose to one thousand seven hundred and eighty one, and one thousand six hundred and fifty-one.

The destructive little beauties have now invaded Ross-shire in such numbers, and have done such grievous damage to young plantations, that the owners of thirty-eight thousand acres of wood in that county have formed themselves into an Anti-Squirrel Club, allowing their gamekeepers fourpence for every tail (? brush) produced. The return for the first year, 1903, was four thousand six hundred and forty!

Changes in the natural history of a country creep in so silently and so unmarked, that it is only by looking back a few years that we become conscious that old friends have disappeared, and that new ones have taken their place. Members of the Society for the Destruction of Rooks and Pigeons in the North of Scotland, which pays a penny per bird on so many thousands annually, find it hard to realise that at the end of the eighteenth century, the arrival of one pair of wood-pigeons in certain fir-woods not far from the Lake of Spynie, furnished an interesting topic for the naturalists of Moray.

My uncle, Sir Alexander Dunbar, used to start on a long walk from the Duffus Woods to the loch, and would mention on his return that he had seen the two pigeons, or, as he preferred to call them, “the cushats.” By the time his eldest son was a bird-nesting lad, the descendants of the gentle pair were so numerous as to afford the boys good sport, and they noted with special interest that these new colonists bred all the year round, and there was not a single month in the year in which they did not find nests with newly-laid eggs. It was some time ere their quest was successful in the month of January, but at length a mild winter enabled them to complete the score of the twelve months.

Of course, the increase of “the cushie do’es” is largely due to the fact that proprietors began to protect their game by killing down the numerous hawks, kites, and buzzards which had hitherto preyed on all wild creatures. Hence the increase of hedgehogs, whose very existence in the country had scarcely been suspected.

Starlings too, now so abundant, were actually unknown, as was well proven by the absence of their eggs from the very perfect collection made by my bird-nesting brothers (at least from the eggs of their own finding in Morayshire). As the starlings increased, the larks (which had given their name to the Laveroch Loch) became fewer and fewer. They almost seem to have vanished with the waters. The hares, formerly so abundant in the cultivated lands of Gordonstoun and Duffus, have also greatly diminished since the extensive drainage of the neighbourhood; while, on the other hand, the increased area devoted to turnips, and the incessant war waged on the “hoodie craws” and other vermin, have been favourable to a corresponding increase of partridges.

Pheasants were in those days quite unknown in this part of Scotland, as also in the adjoining county of Banff, where now some five thousand are annually killed on the banks of the Deveron alone—an increase, however, which of course is in a great measure due to careful rearing on at least one large estate.

Here, too, starlings only made their appearance forty years ago, and the first squirrel was observed about sixty years ago. Except along the sea-board, rabbits were so scarce that when, in 1830, Lord Kintore introduced fox-hunting on the borders of Aberdeen and Banff, his keepers used to go all over the country carrying rabbits, which they dropped in couples, in order to provide tempting diet for the foxes! Indeed in these days of “Ground Game Acts” it seems difficult to realise that less than a century has elapsed since the British Parliament deemed it necessary to pass a special Act (A.D. 1792) for the “Protection of Rabbits” throughout the kingdom.

The said “conies” have tempted me to a long digression. To return from the woods to the sandhills.

To lovers of strange wild birds (naturalists, not bird-butchers) this Moravian desert has long been a paradise, for its unbroken solitude has attracted many a shy, rare visitor. Not only are migratory birds tempted to alight on such a feeding-ground as this sea-shore (shielded from man’s territory by this desert belt, with its outer barrier of low fir-woods), but there are also at the further extremity certain marshy lochs, and a tract of peat-moss and rank heather, which afford inviting shelter to a very varied game-list, from roe-deer to wild swans.

The latter have in recent years been greatly scared by over-zealous pursuit, and the disturbance of frequent trains rushing through the fir-woods; but from forty to fifty years ago, my brothers occasionally had the luck to see flocks of fifty or sixty of these noble birds quietly feeding in the sheltered little lochs aforesaid, their presence being, moreover, a sure guarantee for that of numerous wild-duck, ever on the watch to profit by the exertions of the swans in pulling up weeds from the deeper water, of which they could snatch their share.

Besides the commoner varieties of wild-duck, such as widgeon and mallard, the rarer scoter and velvet duck, the morillon and the golden-eye were prizes occasionally secured; as also the brent goose, the bean goose, and the gossander, a fish-eating bird of beautiful plumage, with cream-coloured breast and glossy green back, which found a breeding-ground just suited to its tastes among the rank herbage beside the fresh-water lochs, yet within easy distance of the sea.

The shore is still frequented by an astonishing variety of birds, teal and snipe, curlews, peewits, golden plovers, sandpipers, and red-shanks, and great flocks of oyster-catchers, with an occasional tall grey heron, though these last are fewer since the persistent attacks of the jackdaws succeeded in driving them from their heronry on the River Findhorn. Neither have we heard in recent years of such immense flocks of beautiful white wild swans as occasionally assembled in the Bay of Findhorn, where as many as three hundred birds have been seen to alight, at the time of their October migrations, there remaining for some hours, to feed and talk, ere dispersing to their several destinations; for after these great swan-parliaments they started in every direction, in parties of from four to twenty, uttering far-sounding musical calls.

Another shy creature which now rarely, if ever, approaches this shore, is the seal, which in the early part of the century haunted the bay, attracted thither by the salmon. The fishers consequently waged a war of extinction, with such results that it is recorded that in the year 1790 one man actually killed a hundred and thirty!

Many conflicting theories have been started to account for the existence of this strange desert. The work of destruction appears to have been due to divers agencies, for in some parts of this region of wind-blown sand we come on tracts of hard sand, sea-shells, and high ridges of water-worn shingle, which appear to have been deposited by an influx of the ocean at some much earlier period. Here and in the neighbouring peat-moss have been found various relics of a remote past. Numerous flint arrow-heads and strange ornaments of bronze—one of which, a ponderous serpentine bracelet, supposed to have belonged to some old Viking, was treasured by my mother, and to her children was ever a talisman to awaken wondering dreams concerning the pale mysterious sandhills which had given birth to such eerie legends of diabolic agency.

For, of course, the supernatural must needs claim a place in the popular tradition which accounts for their existence; and many a time have we listened, with ever-renewed interest, to the thrilling tale of the wicked laird of Culbin, whose iniquities were crowned by refusing to leave his cards on the Sabbath morning, vowing that he would play all day, if the devil himself were his partner—a challenge which was straightway followed by a thunder-clap and the appearance of so skilful a card-player that the wicked laird sat engrossed, hour after hour, and knew nothing of the awful sandstorm which had overwhelmed his dwelling; and there to this day he sits in his buried hall, playing a never-ending game!

Some of the old folks told us how once, as they crossed the sandhills for the first time after a great gale, they had suddenly come on the old mansion, the upper part of which had been laid bare, but a few days later it had again entirely disappeared, and there remained no landmark on the ever-moving desert to show even its whereabouts. From time to time, at long intervals, some of its chimneys have been laid bare by the wind, and once, about a hundred years ago, an old apple-tree came to light, and proved its vitality by blossoming and bearing fruit ere it again disappeared.

Rash is the man who counts on ever finding any one spot unchanged on the morrow! A case very much to the point was that of a whole cargo of smuggled goods having been landed on the shore, and there deposited till they could conveniently be removed. A few days elapsed ere the owners returned, and vainly sought for the spot where their stuff lay concealed. The whole shore seemed to have moved—hills were level, and the valleys were hills. So from that day to this nothing has been seen of the lost goods.

At another time a dispute arose as to the boundary between the estate of Culbin and one of its neighbours, and the disputants had the incredible folly to waste labour in transporting a number of stones, eight feet in height, which were placed on the principal hills to mark the line of march. It is needless to say that after a very short time had elapsed there remained no trace of the boundary-stones!

Before examining such records as we possess concerning the origin of this strange desert tract, it may be well to look back to some earlier chronicles concerning similar disasters that have from time to time befallen our shores. Thus in the Red Book or Records of the Priory of Pluscarden, preserved in the Advocates’ Library in Edinburgh, it is stated that in the year A.D. 1010 the whole low country of Moray was deluged by the sea.

Less than a century elapsed ere the coast of Britain was swept by that awful wave which submerged the lands of Earl Goodwin, and left in their place the dreaded sands which still bear his name. That this same “devastation by sand” wrought desolation on the coast of Moray is affirmed by three ancient chroniclers, Fordun, Buchanan, and Bœthius. The latter tells how “villages, castles, towns, and extensive woods, both in England and Scotland, were overwhelmed by an inundation of the German Ocean, by the weight of which tempest the lands of Godowine, near the mouth of the Thames, were overwhelmed by sand; and likewise the land of Moray in Scotland was at that time desolated by the sea, castles subverted from their foundation, some towns destroyed, and the labours of men laid waste by the discharge of sand from the sea; monstrous thunders also roaring, horrible and vast!”

Of the destruction of “extensive woods” all along the coast of Moray and Nairn there is ample proof, as not only are the broad expanses of peat-moss full of remains of fine old trees, both oak and pine, furnishing the best of firewood at the present day, but the same peat is known to extend far under the sea, and occasionally, after very rough weather, large masses of peat are washed up from the ocean bed. The same old forest is known to have extended right along the coast, and peat-moss crops out from beneath the great sandhills, which have existed for the last two centuries. On the other hand, the incursion of the sea has left its mark in various beaches of water-worn stones, and beds of sea-sand, with quantities of cockle and other marine shells, lying at distances of fully a mile from the present sea-board.

Probably this great volcanic or tidal wave deposited sand all over the country; but it would seem to have been gradually absorbed, as the ruined forest eventually became a great marshy peat-moss, and the once cultivated lands again gradually became overspread with vegetation and restored to fertility. As regards this low-lying estate of Culbin, we find no allusion to anything amiss when, in 1240, it was held by Richard de Moravia, or when, early in the fifteenth century, it passed to the Lady Egidia Moray. The heiress of Culbin bestowed her hand and fortune on Sir Thomas Kinnaird of that Ilk, and her descendants held the estates till the end of the seventeenth century, when they were as effectually destroyed as were those of Earl Goodwin.

There is a tradition to the effect that twenty years before the final catastrophe there had been several serious alarms, owing to the vast accumulations of sand which were cast up by the sea, and which, being carried inland by every gale from the west, gradually deteriorated the value of the farms nearest to the sea-board, destroying the pastures. The first grave alarm seems to have arisen in the autumn of 1676, when the harvest was fully ripe, and the farmers rejoiced in their good-fortune in holding the richest corn-lands of the north. On the westernmost farm the reapers had assembled with their sickles (there were no steam-reapers in those days), and great was their praise of the heavy crop of barley which was to be cut on the morrow. Its richness was noted with wonder, because the summer and autumn had been so exceptionally dry.

The same dry, warm weather still continued, and there was a brooding stillness in the air which excited the misgivings of some, who said it surely presaged storm. Well were their fears verified. Soon a terrific gale sprang up from the north-west, carrying blinding clouds of driving sand; and when the morning dawned, it revealed a level plain of sand, covering the corn-fields to a depth of fully two feet, so that only the tops of the barley were visible. Then the wind fell, and the reapers set about their heavy task of rescuing what they could of the grain, while compelled to sacrifice the straw.

No very serious damage seems to have occurred in the next few years, for up to 1693 the rental of the estates showed no diminution, the sixteen principal farmers each paying on an average two hundred pounds Scots in money, with forty bolls wheat, forty bolls bear (rye), forty bolls oats, and forty bolls oatmeal in kind. (Proprietors in those days needed ample storehouses, and were in fact compelled to be grain-merchants.) This rental represents a sum which may have been equal to about £6000 sterling.

But in the terrible winter of 1694–95 the awful calamity occurred, and in the following summer we find the poor ruined laird, Alexander Kinnaird, petitioning the Scottish Parliament for relief of cess and taxes, on the ground that “the two best parts of his estate of Culbin were quite ruined and destroyed by great and vast heaps of sand which had overblown the same, so that there was not a vestige to be seen of his manor-place of Culbin, yards, orchards, and mains thereof, and which within these twenty years were as considerable as many in the county of Moray; and the small remainder of his estate which yet remained uncovered was exposed to the like hazard, and the sand daily gained ground thereon, where-through he was like to run the hazard of losing the whole ... as a certificate produced under the hands of thirty of the most worthy gentlemen of the shire of Moray, Nairn, and Inverness, thereto can testify.”

Not only were the fruits of the land thus destroyed, but also part of the fishing, for in 1733 we find mention of the salmon-fishings on Findhorn being now quite lost by the alteration of the course of the river, and “having yielded no rent these several years bye past.”

Very different is the rent-roll in the barony of Culbin in this year from that which I have already quoted before the sandstorm. Now we find only thirteen tenants, no longer holding equally-divided portions of land, and of these only six make any payment in money, amounting to an average of five pounds. Very quaint are the terms of rental. Thus:—

1. William Falconer, Laich of Culbin, pays nine bolls, two firlots bear (i.e. rye), six hears of yarn, four capons and a half, two hens, and thirteen loads of peats.

2. Robert Duncan pays two bolls, one firlot, two pecks bear, two capons and a half, two hens, and three loads of peats.

3. Margaret Innes pays two firlots bear, half a capon,^[78] and two loads of peats.

4. John Nicoll pays five pounds ten shillings money, two hens, and six poultry.

And so on. From the total of this singular rental, considerable deduction was made for payment of the minister of Dyke’s stipend, and altogether we can scarcely wonder that the poor laird found himself compelled to dispose of his estates for what they would fetch, and so in 1698 we find a lengthy legal deed of sale, by which he makes them over to Duff of Drummuir, accompanying the deed “with my goodwill and blessing”—a remarkable entry to appear in a legal document, and one which illustrates the existence of a curious old superstition, to the effect that it was exceedingly unlucky to enter into possession of any house or land which the last occupant had been obliged to leave unwillingly. The cause which had led to his being compelled to abandon his home was one which might well excuse the awakening of dormant superstition, and therefore was Kinnaird the more careful to avert any possible source of offence.

It would appear that the shock must have preyed on his mind, for he did not long survive the sale of his estates: within three months he was numbered with the dead.

Nor did the Duffs long retain possession of Culbin, notwithstanding poor Kinnaird’s goodwill and blessing. Only thirty-five years went by ere it was sold by public roup for the benefit of John Duff’s creditors, the sum thus realised being £11,366 Scots, which is somewhat less than £1000 sterling.

Within the last forty years much has been done to prevent the further extension of the sand, and to commence the reclamation of at least the borders of this great Sahara. The means adopted have been the planting of thick belts of young fir-trees, which seem as capable of deriving sustenance from these dry sands as their kindred in mountain districts are of existing on barren rocks.

Further efforts were also made to bind the light, shifting sands by transplanting to them large quantities of the hardy bent, which resembles a very dry rush. Its long fibrous roots throw out innumerable filaments, forming a fine net-work. To secure for it a fair start, quantities of broom and whins were laid on the sandhills and pegged down, so as in some measure to diminish their exposure to the wind. How these labours would be facilitated, if only it were possible to introduce a great family of Californian lupines, which have wrought such wonders in transforming the arid sands around San Francisco into fertile soil!

The formation of this strange desert has by no means been Nature’s only recent freak on these shores. Just beyond the sandhills lies the pleasant bay of Findhorn, at the mouth of the beautiful river of that name (not beautiful as seen at the dead level where it is crossed by the railway, but most romantic in its loveliness as it cuts its deep rock-channel through the great fir-forests). Prior to the year 1701 the fishing and seaport town of Findhorn stood upon a pleasant plain, a mile north-west from the present situation. That plain is now the bottom of the sea!

This great change occurred suddenly, when an unusually high tide burst through the natural sand-bar at the mouth of the river, and surging shoreward, overwhelmed the town. Fortunately, however, this danger had long been foreseen, so the majority of the inhabitants had already forsaken their homes; consequently few lives were endangered.

The old town of Findhorn was situated near a level peat-moss, wherein lay embedded roots and trunks of the great trees which had once nourished in the great forest whose very existence had been forgotten. In the middle of this moorland rose a conical artificial mound about forty fathoms high, called the Douff-hillock. It now lies deep beneath the waves, for that peat-moss is now the ocean bed, and the sea has encroached so far into the land, that instead of the fisher-folk, when bound for the town of Burghead, having a five-mile walk direct to that headland, they have to make a circuit of ten miles round the bay.

The last noteworthy effort of the great waters to pass their accustomed limits on these pleasant shores of Moray occurred in the year 1755, when the fearful earthquake at Lisbon spread terror far and near. Its effects were felt even here, in the form of a volcanic wave, which swept this coast; and it is especially recorded that in the parish of Dyke, near Forres, a flock of sheep, folded in apparent security far beyond the reach of any ordinary tide, were all drowned by the overwhelming wave.

On the other hand, the sea now appears to be steadily receding from these parts of the coast. Old men tell us how, in their youth, they were wont to gather shells and dig for bait on the wet sands between Campbelton and Nairn, where now sheep graze on the brine-sprinkled grass. Moreover, in cutting turf from the older pasture further inland, they were amazed to discover, beneath the thick turf, a paved way, leading to a rude pier, which still retained the iron ring to which boats had been moored at some forgotten time, ere the waters had retreated.