The shoal of whales at present disporting themselves in Lochiel, intending probably, tourist fashion, to visit Inverness by-and-by, via the Caledonian Canal, if they can only arrange it with the authorities, did us the honour to visit Loch Leven, spending an entire day with us, evidently very much to their own satisfaction, if one might judge from their lively somersaultings and incessant gambollings. These whales—a shoal of some five or six hundred, we should say—were a very interesting sight as they gambolled about within a hundred yards of us, blowing loudly the while and lashing the sea with foam, until you might have heard the hurly-burly from the top of the highest mountain in the neighbourhood. They were of all sizes, from full growth, and old age perhaps, down to veriest babyhood. In the shoal, two kinds of whale were mingled together in apparent amity and good-fellowship: the common bottlenose (Balœnoptera acuto-rostrata of La Cèpede—the highest authority on cetaceous animals), measuring some twenty or twenty-five feet in length, and the broad-nosed or rorqual whale (Balœna musculus, Linn.; B. rorqual, La Cèpede), from fifty to sixty feet in length, and appearing beside a bottlenose, as they came to the surface to breathe, like a Clydesdale horse beside a Shetland pony. It will be strange if our friends at Fort-William do not manage to bag some of them ere they repass the narrows at Corran Ferry.
The heat is oppressive within doors; but Loch Leven, we observe, is darkening under a rippling breeze from the south-east, and we are off for a sail in our tidy, little craft, that, with lugsail sheeted home, will go to windward of anything of equal size on the coast.
CHAPTER XIV.
Herrings—Chimæra Monstrosa—Cure for Ringworm—Cold Tea Leaves for inflamed and blood-shot Eyes—An old Incantation for the cure of Sore Eyes—A curious Dirk Sheath—A Tannery of Human Skins.
However unproductive the herring fishing season may be quoad herrings, and this has so far been the worst of a series of bad seasons [September 1870], it rarely fails to provide more or less grist for our mill in the shape of some rarity in marine life worth chronicling. A very ugly and repulsive-looking fish, extremely rare too, was sent us recently for identification. It was caught in Sallachan Bay, in our neighbourhood, having become entangled in the corner of a drift net which the fishermen were hauling into their boat in the grey morning, after a long, wearisome, and profitless night’s labours. We had seen the fish before, though not often, and had therefore no hesitation in recognising it as the Chimæra monstrosa—a scientific name, by the way in which its lack of beauty is plainly enough indicated—a cartilaginous fish, two feet in length, and of somewhat elongated and hake-like form. The general colour is a dull leaden white, mottled on the under parts with small spots of rusty brown. On examining the contents of the stomach, they were found to consist of some very small herring fry, along with partly digested fragments of the adult fish, whence it may be concluded that the Chimæra’s favourite prey, when they can be had, is herring; a conclusion at which we might also easily arrive from the fact that it is seldom or never met with on our shores, except when herring are more or less plentiful. At one time the Chimæra must have been a less rare fish than it is now, for it has a Gaelic name, “Buachaille-an-Sgadain,” the Herring Herd or Herdsman. It was probably comparatively common in the good old times, when even our more inland western lochs swarmed annually with herring shoals, and so large was the capture, that the salt to cure them, on which there was a considerable duty at the time, was frequently retailed over a vessel’s side at a shilling the lippy. The late Colonel Maclean of Ardgour, who attained a great age, with intellect clear and unimpaired, and who was most particular and exact in all his statistics, has repeatedly assured us that, in his younger days, say a hundred years ago, fifty thousand pounds worth of herring used to be captured annually in Lochiel alone. We don’t suppose that for many years past herring to the value of a tenth of that sum have been caught in all the lochs between the Mull of Cantyre and the Point of Ardnamurchan.
The reader probably knows what ringworm is—a fungoid eruption on the skin, not uncommon in the spring and early summer in children and young people of plethoric habits. There is a very wide-spread belief over the West Highlands and in the Hebrides that ringworm can be readily cured by rubbing it over and around once or twice with a gold-ring—a woman’s marriage ring, if it can be had, being always preferred. In our younger days we recollect seeing the cure applied on more than one occasion, whether with the desired result, or ineffectually, we do not know—we probably little thought in those days of kilts, cammanachd, and barley bannocks, of inquiring. For many years we had neither seen nor heard anything either of the disease or of its popular cure, until, by the merest accident, it came under our notice a few days ago. Riding home one evening last week, we observed two little girls and a sturdy long-legged haflin lad sitting patiently in front of a cottage, the door of which was shut and locked. The youngsters, rather better dressed than usual, had come from a considerable distance, and we wondered what they could be doing there. On mentioning the matter next day, we had the story in full as follows:—The three were suffering from ringworm. The owner of the cottage has a marriage ring of wonderful efficacy in curing this epidermic distemper. They had come from one of the inland glens to be operated upon, but the possessor of the ring was away in Glasgow, and only returned home by steamer late that evening. When she did arrive, the young people were duly manipulated and ring-rubbed secundum artem; and in four and twenty hours thereafter we were gravely assured they were quite healed. Any gold ring is usually employed, but the particular ring referred to in this case is much sought after on such occasions, because, as our informant said, it is of “guinea gold,” by which we suppose very pure gold, with the least possible alloy, is meant; and because it is the property of a widow who was married to one husband more than fifty years. A belief in the virtue of gold rings in cures of ringworm is, as we have said, very wide-spread and honestly held by many. Whether, in common phrase, there is “anything in it,” or the whole affair is sheer nonsense, we shall not take it upon us to decide. We merely submit a common and curious article of popular belief for the consideration of our grave and learned dermatologists and the faculty at large. One thing is certain,—the owner of the marvellous ring makes no vulgar profit by her frequent use of it in such cases. She is in comfortable circumstances, and the whole affair, as far as she is concerned, is a mere labour of love.
Another popular cure, which for the first time came under our notice recently, and which in many cases is really efficacious, as we have heard averred by those who have been benefited by its use, is the application of a poultice of cold tea leaves to an inflamed or blood-shot eye. A handful of the leaves is taken from the pot, and placed between two folds of thin cotton or muslin, and applied to the eye at bed-time, kept in its place, of course, by a handkerchief or other band tied round the head. In cases of weak or inflamed eyes from any cause, this is reckoned, in this and the surrounding districts, “the sovereignest thing on earth.” And one can quite understand how tea leaves, at once cooling and astringent, employed in this way, may benefit a hot and inflamed eye. It is a simple application at all events, and always at hand; and when more pretentious remedies are not readily attainable, one would be unwisely prejudiced, if not actually foolish, to suffer long without giving it a fair trial.
A less simple and less readily available cure for sore eyes is the following in old Gaelic verse:— Leigheas Sul.
Luidh Challum-Chille agus spèir,