after a boat to cure insanity was not an isolated instance. Early in the present century, the wife of a man living at Stromness in Orkney, went mad through the incantations of another female believed to be a witch. The man bethought him of the cure in question, and, out of love for his afflicted wife, dragged her several times up and down the harbour behind his boat. Mr. R. M. Fergusson, who mentions this case in his "Rambles in the Far North," says that the woman "bobbed about behind the boat like a cork, and remained as mad as ever." The well at Struthill, in Muthill parish, Perthshire, once had a considerable reputation for the cure of insanity. It was customary to tie patients at night to a stone near the spring, and recovery would follow if they were found loose in the morning. An adjoining chapel was ordered to be demolished in 1650 by the Presbytery of Auchterarder, on the ground of its being the scene of certain superstitious rites, but the spring continued to be visited till a much later date. At Teampull-mòr in Lewis, in addition to walking round the ruins, and being sprinkled with water from St. Ronan's Well, the insane person was bound and left all night in the chapel on the site of the altar. If he slept, he would recover; but if he remained awake, there was no hope of a cure. In the Struthill and Teampull-mòr instances, as well as that of Strathfillan mentioned below, the binding of the patient was an essential part of the treatment; and in two at least of the cases the loosening of the bonds was reckoned an omen of good. The mysterious loosening of bonds used to be an article of common belief. Dalyell, in his "Darker Superstitions of Scotland," remarks, "Animals were sometimes liberated supernaturally. In the Isle of Enhallow, a horse tied up at sunset would wander about through the night; and while the kirk session took cognisance of a suspected witch who had exercised her faculties on a cow, the animal, though firmly secured, was found to be free, and in their vicinity when the investigation closed." The Holy Pool of St. Fillan was famous for the cure of various diseases, but specially of insanity. It is referred to in "Marmion" as "St. Fillan's blessed well Whose springs can frenzied dreams dispel And the craz'd brain restore."