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278 Gaelic Society of Inverness.
An incident of a less agreeable nature ended fatally at Bogroy
Inn. The officers made a raid on the upper end of Strathglass,
where they discovered a large quantity of malt concealed in a
barn, which the smugglers were determined to defend. They
crowded behind the door, which was of wicker-work dorxiscaoil—
to prevent its being forced open by the gangers. Unable
to foi'ce the door, one of the officers ran his cutlass through the
wicker work, and stabbed one of the smugglers, John Chisholni,
afterwards called Ian Mor na Garvaig, in the chest. Fearing that
serious injury had been done, the officers hastened away, but, in
the hurry, one of the men fell over a bank, and was so severely
trampled upon and kicked by the smugglers, that he had to be
conveyed to Bogroy Inn, where he died next day. Ian Mor, who
only died a few months ago, showed me the scar of the wound on
his chest. He was another man who had gained nothing by smug-
gling.
Time would fail to tell how .spii-its, not bodies, have l)een
cai-ried past officers in coffins and hearses, and even in bee hives.
How bothies have been built undergroiind, and the smoke sent up
the house lum, or how an ordinary pot has been placed in the ori-
fice of an underground bothy, so as to make it appear that the fire
and smoke were aye for washing ])urposes. At the Falls of the
Orrin the bothy smoke was made to blend judiciously with the
spray of the Falls so as to escape notice. Some good tricks were
played upon my predecessors on the West Coast. The Melvaig
smugglers openly diverted from a burn a small stream of water
right over the face of a high cliff underneath which there was a
cave inaccessible by land, and very seldom accessible by water.
This was done to mislead the officers, the cave being sea-washed,
and unsuitable for distillation. While the officers were breaking
their heai'ts, and nearly their necks, to get into this cave, the
smugglers were quietly at work at a considerable distance. On
another occasion the Loch-Druing and Camustrolvaig smugglers
were at work in a cave near the latter place, when word reached
them that the officers were coming. Taking advantage of the
notoriety of the Melvaig smugglers, a man was sent immediately
in front of the officers, running at his hardest, without coat or
bonnet in the direction of Melvaig. The ruse took, and the
officers were decoyed past the bothy towards Melvaig, the
smugglers meanwhile finishing off and removing their goods and
utensils into safe hiding.
After dinner, Tom Sheridan said in a confidential undertone
to his guests, " Now let us undei'stand each other : are we to drink
—