shore, to ensure a successful fishing; and when hand-line fishing, a man who has had little luck and is getting impatient, as he baits his hook afresh, spits on it before dropping it again into the sea, in the belief that good luck attends the act. An old woman who has just bound up a bruised or broken limb, whether of man or beast, will sometimes finish the operation by spitting on the bandage. In the superstitions of most countries, such involuntary and apparently causeless acts as sneezing and yawning are attributed to supernatural agencies, and spitting at the sneezer or yawner is still sometimes practised as a counter-charm by the oldest and most learned professors of such lore, an older superstition probably than the more common practice of invoking the Divine blessing on the subjects in such cases. Questionable, therefore, and rude as at first sight seemed the act, we assured our Badenoch friend that the "wise woman," in acting as she did, meant his bairn no evil or disrespect at all, but the very contrary. CHAPTER LVII. Caught in a Squall on Loch Leven--Potatoes and Herrings: How to cook them--A day in Glen Nevis--A visit to Uaimh Shomhairle, or Samuel's Cave--The Cave-Men. The reader may remember that we concluded our last with a hopeful and jubilant note, believing that really fine weather--a long track of it, perhaps--was just at hand. We much regret having to say that our meteorological vaticinations proved utterly incorrect. It still rains [July 1877], not constantly, indeed, but with sufficient persistence to make everybody miserable, and to reduce our hopes of a good harvest almost to zero. Yesterday, for example, we had occasion to cross the Loch in our boat. It was a nice bright day enough at starting, with a fresh breeze from N.W., which carried us along at racing pace. All of a sudden the heavens became black and threatening; a terrible squall almost capsized us ere we had time to sing out to our companion to let go "everything by the run." He did, fortunately, let go just in time, and grasping an oar ourselves, and calling on him to take another, we had her head turned to the wind and waves as quietly but as quickly as possible. Thus we held her, just like a horse by the reins, while the squall lasted, and cunningly took advantage of its drift to get to the Appin shore. We managed to reach it, but in very sorry plight, as you shall hear. With the squall had come rain, literally the heaviest we ever saw, which drenched us to the skin; every drop big enough to fill as it fell the largest of thimbles, and driven by the squall, remember, it fell with the force of a spent bullet. As "drookit" and drenched we landed, and crawled with all the miserable, and woebegone, and shambling gait of the really and thoroughly through-and-through wet, you would have laughed in the teeth of all the rain had you only met us; and we much doubt if any one who did not know us would