3 SEPTEMBER 1921, Page 25

A Hundred Years in the Highlands. By Osgood Hanbury Mackenzie,

of Inverewe. (Arnold. 16s. net.)—This highly interesting book is based not merely on the reminiscences of Mr. Mackenzie, who is seventy-nine and has spent most of his life at Gairloch and Loch Ewe, but also on his uncle's unpub- lished memoirs, which go back to the year 1803. The book thus covers almost the whole modern period in which the Western Highlands have gradually emerged from the primitive conditions that Dr. Johnson found on his memorable tour. Even in the author's childhood the Gairloch district had no roads ; in 1803 a troop of tenants with led horses took three days to convey the family to Gairloch from Dingwall. Mr. Mackenzie describes the social changes that he has witnessed, and abounds in excellent anecdotes of sport, smugglers and fairies. He devotes a chapter to his famous gardens at Inverewe, made on what was a barren waste in 1862. Indeed, his Highland memories deserve to be ranked with the Lowland reminiscences of " Jupiter " Carlyle and Dean Ramsay. It may be interesting to add that the author's ancestral home at Gairloch, of which he has much to say, is now held by his nephew, Sir Kenneth Mackenzie, who is entertaining the Prime Minister.