We were the other day accidentally brought into contact with a curious superstition, which, although not peculiar to this district, but common, we believe, over all the Highlands, was yet quite new to us. We were sailing past the beautiful island of St. Mungo, in Loch Leven, the burial-place for many centuries of the people of Nether Lochaber and Glencoe, when the following conversation took place between ourselves and an old man who managed the sails while we steered. It was all in Gaelic, of course, but we give the substance in English:--"You were at the funeral on the island the other day, sir?" interrogatively observed our companion. "I was, indeed," we replied. "John ----," he continued, naming the deceased, "was a very decent man." "He was a fine old Highlander, shrewd and intelligent," we replied, "and, what is more, I believe a very good man." "Donald ----," naming a person we both knew, "is very ill, and not likely to last long." "I saw him to-day," we observed, "and I fear that what you say is true: he cannot last long." "Well, sir, it will be a good thing for John ---- (the person recently buried); his term of watching will be a short one." "I do not understand what you mean," we observed, with some curiosity. "The man is dead and buried; what watching should he have to do?" "Why, sir, don't you know that the spirit of the last person buried in the island has to keep watch and ward over the graves till the spirit of the next person buried takes his place?" "I really did not know that," we replied. "Is it a common opinion that such is the case, and do you believe it yourself?" "Well, sir, it is generally believed by the people; and having always heard that it was so, I cannot well help believing it too. The spirit whose watch it is, is present there day and night. Some people have seen them: my mother, God rest her! once pointed out to me, when I was a little boy, an appearance, as of a flame of light on the island, slowly moving backwards and forwards, and she assured me it was the watching spirit going his rounds." "What particular object has the spirit in watching?" we asked. "Well, I don't exactly know," was the answer. "He just takes a sort of general charge of the Island of the Dead, until his successor arrives." We have since found that a belief in this superstition is common among the old people. The spirit or ghost is supposed to be to a certain extent unhappy, and impatient of relief while in the discharge of this office, and thus, it is considered, that the sooner after a funeral there is occasion again for the opening of a grave, the better it is for the spirit of the last person interred, who then, and not till then, passes finally and fully to his rest.