Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

LOCH SCAVIG. 467
Another hour served to procure tlie complement of oars
from certain other boats; and, my exemplary patience
being- thus at length rewarded, I took my seat in the
stern, full of hope, as the day was not yet half done. A
third palaver, however, arose, in which the word " puta-
chan" seemed to be preeminent ; while the men were
fishing- with their hands for something that was expected
to come out of the dirty water which filled half the boat;
forming", in this country, the usual ballast, as not being
subject to shift, perhaps. Two rowing pins, where eight
should have been, extracted out of this receptacle of
all manner of fishiness, explained the clamour about
" putachan." If there are trees in Sky, there were none,
at least, at Gillan ; but still I did not despair, as I knew
that a Highlander is never at a loss for an expedient.
He has a good-humoured philosophy that is not easily
disconcerted ; and, accordingly, a harrow was procured,
and, a few of its wooden teeth being drawn, we found
ourselves stored with the very best of putachans.
At length we were really under way ; even the
first stroke of the oars had been given, when, as fate
willed it, an unlucky breeze sprang up. It was now
time to think of despairing ; and, though not always of
Gonzalo's opinion, in this difiicult country, I would have
preferred a good many furlongs of the worst moor in
Sky, to even an acre of the navigation which I saw im-
pending. It was immediately proposed, of course, to
return for a sail ; the very evil which I had tried to
guard against, by choosing a boat that had neither rud-
der nor mast, nor even a step for a mast. If all these
were not obstacles, what could one feeble " filet" of
English voice expect to do against the " gueules"of five
Highlanders, all talking at once in an unknown tongue.
In a minute we were again on shore, and away they all
went to get a sail ; while I sat, ignorantly consoling my-
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