The day after Clunie arrived, he thought it time to remove from Mellanauir, and took the Prince about two miles further into Benalder, to a little sheil called Uiskchibra, where the hut or bothie was superlatively bad and smoky; yet His Royal Highness put up with everything. Here he remained for two or three nights; and then removed to a very romantic habitation, made for him by Clunie, two miles further into Benalder, called the Cage; which was a great curiosity, and can scarcely be described to perfection. It was situated in the face of a very rough, high and rocky mountain, called Letternilichk, still a part of Benalder, full of great stones and crevices, and some scattered wood interspersed. The habitation called the Cage, in the face of that mountain, was within a small thick bush of wood. There were first some rows of trees laid down, in order to level a floor for the habitation; and as the place was steep, this raised the lower side to an equal height with the other; and these trees, in the way of joists or planks, were levelled with earth and gravel. There were betwixt the trees, growing naturally on their own roots, some stakes fixed in the earth, which, with the trees, were interwoven with ropes, made of heath and birch twigs, up to the top of the Cage, it being of a round or rather oval shape; and the whole thatched and covered over with fog.[110] This whole fabric hung, as it were, by a large tree, which reclined from the one end, all along the roof to the other, and which gave it the name of the Cage, and by chance there happened to be two stones at a small distance from one another, in the side next the precipice, resembling the pillars of a chimney where the fire was placed. The smoke had its vent out here, all along the face of the rock, which was so much of the same colour, that one could discover no difference in the clearest day. The Cage was no larger than to contain six or seven persons; four of whom were frequently employed playing at cards, one idle looking on, one baking, and another firing bread and cooking. Here His Royal Highness remained till the 13th of September, when he was informed that the vessels for receiving and carrying him to France were arrived at Lochnanuagh. The Prince set out immediately; and travelling only by night, arrived at Borodale, near Lochnanuagh, on the 19th of September, and embarked there on the 20th. FOOTNOTES: [109] Grazings. [110] Moss. * * * * * BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD _Crown 8vo. 1s. net each_ +Bell's English History Source-Books+ JOINT EDITORS S. E. WINBOLT, M.A., Christ's Hospital, Horsham KENNETH BELL, M.A., Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford _THE FOLLOWING VOLUMES ARE READY_ +449-1066. The Welding of the Race.+ By the Rev. JOHN WALLIS, M.A., Christ's Hospital, Horsham. +1066-1154. The Normans in England.+ Edited by A. E. BLAND, M.A. (Public Record Office).