A Scotch Smugglers' Retreat.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 245, 10 March 1888, Page 5

A Scotch Smugglers' Retreat.

The revenue officers have, the "Scotchman " says, discovered another ingeniously concealed smugglers' "bothy" in Strathcarron, Ross-shire. In their search the officers followed the- gorge of a stream which flows in a series of cascades through a rocky chasm of great dep'h. Here, twenty feel from the bottom of the rocks, they iouncl one of tho most artfully constructed bothies ever seen. At first it appeared to be a cave, but on entering it was been that it had been scooped oaifc of the rock and roofed with strong; planks, over which boulders and shingle were thrown in a haphazard way, ap. if the whole were a mast of debris from the locks overhead. Tho waterchannel to and from the bothy was also covered with boulders —in fact, there was nothing to indicate that nuch a place existed except that the rocks above were blackened with smoke. In the bothy were found a mash tun of 250 gallons capacity, a receiver of twenty gallons capacity, a thermometer, several minor utensils, and, most important of all, the doit-dubh (or black pot), as tho natives call the still. How .the smugglers managed to get thengoods in or out 'of such a dangerous place was a puzzle to the officers until, alter some risky scrambling, the gorge was further explored, resulting in the discovery of a cleft in the rock, down which a i ope- ladder was suspended fiom a tree at the top. Others of the officers had in the meantime discovered another bothy, near which was concealed a mash tun of 350 gallons capacity. All these utent-ils were destroyed on the spot, except the still, which was borne away as u trophy.