quantity of snow that fell upon the mountains, and hindered me from discerning or making any road. During my stay, I by good fortune got a pound of black bread to live upon. The snow somewhat melting I set forward again from Lochaber towards the sea-shore. On the road I was overtaken by about forty women, half-starved to death who were wandering up and down for safety. Some of them, who spoke English, told me, they had been driven out of their houses by the soldiers who were sent out from Fort William to ravage burn and plunder all before them and now it was that the most heart-rending scenes of misery began to present themselves; for many of these poor creatures with children in their arms, lay extended in the clefts of the rocks half covered with snow, dead, and a-dying in the most piteous manner. With these companions of misery, and daily meeting with more I passed some days. I now learned, that many of the unfortunate adherents of the Prince had been famished to death on the hills and I expected it would soon be my turn, for I began to be almost unable to proceed, my shoes being worn out, and the sharp rocks wounding my feet. However, I encouraged myself with the thought that my pursuers would have the same difficulty to climb the rocks as I had; and on the twentieth day[444] after our defeat at Culloden I came to the sea, in Clan-Ronald’s Country; the view of which was most agreeable to me, though even then I saw no prospect of escaping. Getting a little refreshment from the people who dwelt on the sea-shore, I began as it were to revive again, having been almost starved to death with hunger and cold; for I had been obliged to lie down for whole nights under the shelves of rocks, and was for two or three days together without eating at all, as nothing could be obtained either for love or money. Though I was fat and strong at the battle of Culloden, I was now quite emaciated and reduced to so miserable a state, that, if I had had another day to walk, I am sure I must have died; for I was not only starved with hunger and cold, but frightfully covered with vermin, which bit me all over my body so that there remained not one whole place in my skin. This, joined with the pain in my torn feet, made me often think that Job could not be in a more piteous condition. Yet as he had God for his comforter, so had I; for the justness of the cause I was suffering for, gave me great courage, and supported me much: and though I saw daily enmities exercised against me, it was a great satisfaction to me, to think, that, during the time I had the honour of being a soldier under the banner of our dear Prince, I could not accuse myself of one act that a Christian might blush at.