f seeking health by bathing or dipping in
lakes, or drinking from certain springs, may be deplored, it is
tolerable compared with the superstitious belief that prevails, of
epilepsy being cured by the affected person drinking water out of a
suicide's skull, or by tasting or touching the blood of a murderer.

A gentleman, writing lately from Fort William, says:--"It is a mistake
to suppose that superstition is entirely extinct in the Highlands, or
that it is confined to old women alone. It was only the other day a
certain spinster in Lochaber, who has reached the shady side of sixty,
owned a cow. Up to last week the cow was a model one in every sense of
the term, but last week it showed sure signs of the effect of the
'evil eye.' The symptoms were chiefly deficiency in quantity and
quality of milk. A consistory of old women was soon called, and, among
a host of other queer contrivances, they had recourse to
one--commendable chiefly for its simplicity, and also for its complete
success. It was no other than smearing the brute all over with soot
and salt! As this was done for the purpose of spoiling the beauty of
the beast, it may be better guessed than described how completely it
answered the purpose."

Another gentleman, writing from Grantown, assures us that "One night
in 1878, two men, one of whom was blind, entered the village of
Grantown and inquired as to the nearest route to Tomintoul. They came
from a parish north of Inverness, and the object of their long journey
was to visit a representative of the family of the warlock Willox,
with a view to overturn some bad luck which had beset the course in
life of the younger of the two. The attempt to dissuade them from
proceeding further on their foolish errand was fruitless. Their faces
had been set on the journey, and they were sternly resolved to
accomplish it at all hazards. They pressed on their way, the blind man
leaning on the arm of his companion, though night was on the point of
falling. The matter pressed heavily on the younger, and it was in vain
he tried to conceal his thoughts, being either 'crazed with care or
crossed in hopeless love.'"

We have not learned how the travellers succeeded, but this we know,
that members of the Willox family have been supposed for generations
to profess knowledge of the occult science. Those of the nineteenth
century, to whom the hidden secrets of their fathers have been
imparted, eke out a livelihood by cultivating a small