Series 1 > Tours in Scotland 1747, 1750, 1760

FORT AUGUSTUS, LOCH NESS, GLEN MORISTON. 101
lough, in which the river Morrison runs and gives the name of
Invermorrison to the place where we landed. They say the
river rises 16 miles off; by the Map its sources are near the
Western Sea towards Skye, in its way it forms Lough Cluny.
The Laird of Glenmorrison has a house here; and at this place
there is a very fine linnen Manufactory, built out of the for¬
feited Estates. They teach 40 Girls for three months to Spinn,
and then they take in forty more; they buy flax and employ
six looms. They buy also yarn from the Country people, who
raise a large quantity of it. It consists of the principal Build¬
ing, and an office, for the Manufactures on each side. There
are two more, one at Lough Carran, the other at Lough Broom,
both to the West.
From this place we went on and came to Foyers on the
South side belonging to a Frasier, but now in the hands of the
Government for a debt due* to Lord Lovett. Almost all the
Estates on both sides were forfeited except this, Glencarry, and
Gian Morrison. Here is a most beautifull narrow glyn with
high rocks and wood on each side, and a very fine water fall
in one sheet about ten or twelve feet wide, and as I conjectured
a fall of near 100 feet. The opening in the rock perpendicular
over it, for near 50 feet as I guess, is so narrow that when there
is a great flood the fall is by so much the higher, and is, they
say, then extremely fine.
A little beyond this is the half way house to Inverness
called the General’s Hutt,1 where General Wade lived in the
summer when the roads were carrying on. The Rebels blew it
up, and the Duke after the battle of Culloden encamped' near
Fort Augustus, the house of the Fort being destroyed ; and at
the Fort Lord Lovett was kept, untill he was sent to London.
We proceeded in our voyage, and came on the North side
to Urqhuart Castle2 wch belonged to the Cummins, and was
1 ‘ The General’s Hut ... is now a house of entertainment for passengers,
and we found it not ill stocked with provisions.’—Dr. Johnson’s Journey to IVest.
hi., 1773. This old inn has entirely disappeared; it stood a short distance west
of the old churchyard of Boleskine.
3 See Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, vol. vi. p. 152, for a -
paper by Mr. William Mackay, Inverness, on the ‘ Early History of the Glen and
Castle of Urquhart.’ Mr. Mackay is now writing an exhaustive history of the
United Parish of Urquhart and Glenmoriston, including the Castle.