Dr Mackenzie, writing of the days of his father, Sir Hector Mackenzie, says:--"One of my father's amphibious crofters disappeared, leaving his wife and family to the care of Providence, without a clue to his being dead or alive, for some five years. One day my father, superintending some job near the bay, noticed a man coming towards him with a true sailor-like roll. Intimate with the cut of every man on the estate, says he, 'Surely that is dead Donald M'Lean's walk;' and, on coming near, it certainly was Donald himself, in naval attire. 'Halloa, Donald!' says he, 'where on earth are you from?' speaking, as he always did to his people, in Gaelic. Donald pulled up, and saluting, replied in two words, also in Gaelic, 'Bho Iutharn,' the English of which is simply 'From hell.' The service on board a man-of-war was then really infernal, though Donald, who had been grabbed by a press-gang, had survived five years of it, and found his widow and children glad to see him again." For other stories connected with the press-gang system see Part II., chap. xxv. Very few recruits are in the present day forthcoming from Gairloch for the army, navy, or militia. The Volunteer corps, which is the "I" Company of the Ross Highland Rifle Volunteers, is well supported, and is generally over its authorised strength. It has three pipers, and the rank and file comprise a number of fine men. Though perhaps not exactly within the subject of this chapter, the following account given by James Mackenzie of almost the first guns brought to Gairloch may be added:-- It was about 1823 that a large ship was destroyed by fire at Ullapool. Part of her cargo was saved. Besides some casks of fish-hooks, a number of guns were taken out of the burning ship. There was a man then living at Mellon Udrigil in Gairloch named Finlay Fraser; he had come as a foxhunter from Beauly; he got seven of the guns out of the ship. It is said that one of these guns of more than sixty years ago was recently to be seen preserved as a curiosity in the farmhouse of Tollie. Finlay carried on illicit distillation of whisky in a large cave on the Greenstone point. He used to steep barley in whisky, and spread it on the ground in front of a sort of screen, called in Gaelic "skar," behind which he lay in wait with one of his guns until wild geese and other birds came to eat the barley, which soon rendered them "drunk and incapable," when Finlay got easy pot-shots at them. Though the guns obtained from this ship were the first in general use in Gairloch, it is certain that guns had occasionally been brought into the parish long before. [Illustration: ANTIQUITY NO. 6. STONE CELT FOUND AT COVE. SCALE--HALF TRUE SIZE.] Chapter III. POLITY AND CUSTOMS.