A letter from Australia has shed new light on the Massacre of Glencoe.

It contains previously unrecorded details of one man's part in the slaughter in 1692.

The letter was written by the great-grandson of a Highland participant in the massacre, and is still in the hands of one of his descendants, who lives in Australia.

David Aird, who emigrated to America from Avoch, in Ross-shire's Black Isle in the 1830s, records the tale of February 13, 1692, in Glencoe, which was passed down orally throught his family.

It was originally told by Sergeant Robert Barbour, or Barber, a soldier in King Williams army, who later returned to his native Black Isle.

A copy of the letter, with its graphic detail of Barbour's role, was recently brought to Scotland by Gareth Grainger, a direct descendan, who was seeking his roots near Inverness. Mr Grainger, deputy chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Authority, took a copy of the letter to David Alston, curator of the Black Isle museum.

It told how English-speaker Barbour, so disgusted with one of the orders from his commander Robert Campbell, knew enough Gaelic to blurt a warning for a young Macdonald to escape.

It starts by telling how there is a piece of ground in Rosemarkie, known as Barber's land, named after the writer's great-grandfather.

''Well, he mortgaged the land for a trifle and joined King William's army . . . he was one of the party in the Glencoe Massacre.

''He returned and told how the poor natives thrashed and dressed their little bits of corn which they had for their year's feed and did everything in their power to make the fellows comfortable . . .

''. . . no-one knew why they were there, but the leader.

''He, one morning, told them to get under arms and slay every man and man-child in the place, which they accomplished, the chief murdered in his bed beside his wife.

''The ruffian leader sent one fellow in to slay a babe they heard cry. While drawing his sword a sunny ray struck it, which made the babe to laugh. The man came back and said he would not do it. Another was sent in to do the job.

''Just leaving the village after their bloody work, a little boy came running out . . . 'slay that boy, a young chick becomes an old hen'. He only escaped when Barbour in Gaelic told him to run up the hill.''

Yesterday, Mr Alston said: ''It is often the case that families of Scots descent abroad have preserved their family stories better than those who stayed at home.''