_Iris_, along with another sailor named Allan Mackenzie. For a long time they and others worked a large pump with two horses with the object of emptying the loch. The pump was placed on the burn which runs from the loch into the not far distant sea; a cut or drain was formed to enable the pump to be worked, and a number of pipes were provided for the purpose of conducting the water away. The pipes are now lying in a house or shed at Laide. James Mackenzie often attended the pump. He and others were employed parts of two years in the attempt to empty the loch, or as James Mackenzie puts it, "to ebb it up." It was after this that the _Iris_ was sent to Broadford in Skye to procure lime. James Mackenzie went with her. They brought from Broadford fourteen barrels of "raw lime." They came with the lime to Udrigil, and it was taken up to the "loch of the beast," and the small boat or dingy of the _Iris_ was also taken up. The ground-officers would not go in the boat on the loch for fear of the Beast, so Mr Bankes sent to the _Iris_ for James and Allan Mackenzie, and they went in the boat over every part of the loch, which had been reduced only by six or seven inches after all the labour that had been spent on it. They plumbed the loch with the oars of the boat; in no part did it exceed a fathom in depth, except in one hole, which at the deepest was but two and a half fathoms. Into this hole they put the fourteen barrels of lime. It is needless to state that the Beast was not discovered, nor has he been further disturbed up to the present time. The loch contained a few good trout above the average size when I fished it in 1873. There are rumours that the Beast was seen in 1884 in or near another loch on the Greenstone Point. Here is a story of a mermaid; they say it is quite true:--Roderick Mackenzie, the elderly and much respected boatbuilder at Port Henderson, when a young man, went one day to a rocky part of the shore there. Whilst gathering bait he suddenly spied a mermaid asleep among the rocks. Rorie "went for" that mermaid, and succeeded in seizing her by the hair. The poor creature, in great embarrassment, cried out that if Rorie would let go she would grant him whatever boon he might ask. He requested a pledge that no one should ever be drowned from any boat he might build. On his releasing her, the mermaid promised that this should be so. The promise has been kept throughout Rorie's long business career; his boats still defy the stormy winds and waves. I am the happy possessor of an admirable example of Rorie's craft. The most ingenious framers of trade advertisements might well take a hint from this veracious anecdote. [Illustration: ANTIQUITY NO. 14.--TUYERE, FROM THE FASAGH IRONWORKS. SCALE--ONE-FOURTH TRUE SIZE.] Chapter XIV. WITCHCRAFT AND MAGIC.