We were never more thankful than when we got safely across those awful waters and the great waves we encountered off Dunnet Head, and when we were safely landed near Thurso we did not forget the skipper, but bade him a friendly and, to him, lucrative farewell.

We had some distance to walk before reaching the town where, loaded with our luggage and carrying the large basket between us, each taking hold of one of the well-worn handles, we attracted considerable attention, and almost every one we saw showed a disposition to see what we were carrying in our hamper; but when they discovered it was empty, their curiosity was turned into another channel, and they must see where we were taking it; so by the time we reached the house recommended by our skipper for good lodgings we had a considerable following of "lookers on." Fortunately, however, no one attempted to add to our burden by placing anything in the empty basket or we should have been tempted to carry it bottom upwards like an inmate of one of the asylums in Lancashire. A new addition was being built in the grounds, and some of the lunatics were assisting in the building operations, when the foreman discovered one of them pushing his wheelbarrow with the bottom upwards and called out to him, "Why don't you wheel it the right way up?"

"I did," said the lunatic solemnly, "but they put bricks in it!"

We felt that some explanation was due to our landlady, who smiled when she saw the comical nature of that part of our luggage and the motley group who had followed us, and as we unfolded its history and described the dearth of willows in the Orkneys, the price we had paid, the difficulties in finding the hamper, and the care we had taken of it when crossing the stormy seas, we could see her smile gradually expanding into a laugh that she could retain no longer when she told us we could have got a better and a cheaper basket than that in the "toon," meaning Thurso, of course. It was some time before we recovered ourselves, laughter being contagious, and we could hear roars of it at the rear of the house as our antiquated basket was being stored there.

After tea we crossed the river which, like the town, is named Thurso, the word, we were informed, meaning Thor's House. Thor, the god of thunder, was the second greatest of the Scandinavian deities, while his father, Odin, the god of war, was the first. We had some difficulty in crossing the river, as we had to pass over it by no less than eighty-five stepping-stones, several of which were slightly submerged. Here we came in sight of Thurso Castle, the residence of the Sinclair family, one of whom, Sir John Sinclair, was the talented author of the famous Statistical Account of Scotland, and a little farther on stood Harold's Tower. This tower was erected by John Sinclair over the tomb of Earl Harold, the possessor at one time of one half of Orkney, Shetland, and Caithness, who fell in battle against his own namesake, Earl Harold the Wicked, in 1190. In the opposite direction was Scrabster and its castle, the scene of the horrible murder of John, Earl of Caithness, in the twelfth century, "whose tongue was cut from his throat and whose eyes were put out." We did not go there, but went into the town, and there witnessed the departure of the stage, or mail coach, which was just setting out on its journey of eighty miles, for railways had not yet made their appearance in Caithness, the most northerly county in Scotland. We then went to buy another hamper, and got a much better one for less money than we paid at Stromness, for we had agreed that we would send home two hampers filled with shells instead of one. We also inquired the best way of getting to John o' Groat's, and were informed that the Wick coach would take us the first six miles, and then we should have to walk the remaining fifteen. We were now only one day's journey to the end and also from the beginning of our journey, and, as may easily be imagined, we were anxiously looking forward to the morrow.

Friday, September 15th.

At eight o'clock in the morning we were comfortably seated in the coach which was bound for Wick, with our luggage and the two hampers safely secured on the roof above, and after a ride of about six miles we were left, with our belongings, at the side of the highway where the by-road leading in the direction of John o' Groat's branched off to the left across the open country. The object of our walk had become known to our fellow-passengers, and they all wished us a pleasant journey as the coach moved slowly away. Two other men who had friends in the coach also alighted at the same place, and we joined them in waving adieux, which were acknowledged from the coach, as long as it remained in sight. They also very kindly assisted us to carry our luggage as far as they were going on our way, and then they helped us to scheme how best to carry it ourselves. We had brought some strong cord with us from Thurso, and with the aid of this they contrived to sling the hampers over our shoulders, leaving us free to carry the remainder of our luggage in the usual way, and then, bidding us a friendly farewell, left us to continue on our lonely way towards John o' Groat's. We must have presented an extraordinary appearance with these large baskets extending behind our backs, and we created great curiosity and some amusement amongst the men, women, and children who were hard at work harvesting in the country through which we passed.

My brother said it reminded him of Christian in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, who carried the burden on his back and wanted to get rid of it; while I thought of Sinbad the Sailor, who, when wrecked on a desert island, was compelled to carry the Old Man of the Sea on his shoulders, and he also wanted to get rid of his burden; but we agreed that, like both of these worthy characters, we should be obliged to carry our burdens to the end of the journey.

We had a fine view of Dunnet Head, which is said to be the Cape Orcas mentioned by Diodorus Siculus, the geographer who lived in the time of Julius Caesar, and of the lighthouse which had been built on the top of it in 1832, standing quite near the edge of the cliff.

The light from the lantern, which was 346 feet above the highest spring tide, could be seen at a distance of 23 miles; but even this was sometimes obscured by the heavy storms from the west when the enormous billows from the Atlantic dashed against the rugged face of the cliff and threw up the spray as high as the lights of the building itself, so that the stones they contained have been known to break the glass in the building; such, indeed, was the prodigious combined force of the wind and sea upon the headland, that the very rock seemed to tremble as if it were affected by an earthquake.

While on the coach we had passed the hamlets of Murkle and Castlehill. Between these two places was a sandy pool on the seashore to which a curious legend was attached. The story goes that—

a young lad on one occasion discovered a mermaid bathing and by some means or other got into conversation with her and rendered himself so agreeable that a regular meeting at the same spot took place between them. This continued for some time. The young man grew exceedingly wealthy, and no one could tell how he became possessed of such riches. He began to cut a dash amongst the lasses, making them presents of strings of diamonds of vast value, the gifts of the fair sea nymph. By and by he began to forget the day of his appointment; and when he did come to see her, money and jewels were his constant request. The mermaid lectured him pretty sharply on his love of gold, and, exasperated at his perfidy in bestowing her presents on his earthly fair ones, enticed him one evening rather farther than usual, and at length showed him a beautiful boat, in which she said she would convey him to a cave in Darwick Head, where she had all the wealth of all the ships that ever were lost in the Pentland Firth and on the sands of Dunnet. He hesitated at first, but the love of gold prevailed, and off they set to the cave in question. And here, says the legend, he is confined with a chain of gold, sufficiently long to admit of his walking at times on a small piece of sand under the western side of the Head; and here, too, the fair siren laves herself in the tiny waves on fine summer evenings, but no consideration will induce her to loose his fetters of gold, or trust him one hour out of her sight.

We walked on at a good pace and in high spirits, but, after having knocked about for nine days and four nights and having travelled seven or eight hundred miles by land and sea, the weight of our extra burden began to tell upon us, and we felt rather tired and longed for a rest both for mind and body in some quiet spot over the week's end, especially as we had decided to begin our long walk on the Monday morning.

Visions of a good hotel which we felt sure we should find at John o' Groat's began to haunt us, and the more hungry we became the brighter were our anticipations of the good fare that awaited us. But judge of our surprise and disappointment when a man whom we met on the road told us there was no hotel there at all! We asked if he thought we could get lodgings at John o' Groat's House itself, but the sardonic grin that spread over his features when he told us that that house had vanished long ago was cruel. The information gave us quite a shock, and our spirits seemed to fall below zero as we turned our backs on the man without even thanking him for answering our questions. We felt not too full, but too empty for words, as we were awfully hungry, and I heard my brother murmur something that sounded very like "Liar"; but the man's information turned out to be perfectly correct. Our luggage also began to feel heavier, and the country gradually became more wild and desolate. Our spirits revived a little when a fisherman told us of a small inn that we should reach a mile or two before coming to John o' Groat's. We thought we had surely come to the end of everywhere when we reached the "Huna Inn," for it stood some distance from any other house and at the extreme end of an old lane that terminated at the sea. It was a small, primitive structure, but it was now our only hope, as far as we knew, for obtaining lodgings, and we could scarcely restrain our delight when we were told we could be accommodated there until Monday morning. It was an intense relief to us to be separated from our cumbersome luggage, and we must say that Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie did all in their power to make us comfortable and happy and to make us feel at home. We contented ourselves with some light refreshments which to some non-pedestrians might have appeared decidedly heavy, and then decided to see all that remained of John o' Groat's House.

Walking along the beach for about a mile and a half, the distance we were told that separated the ruins from the inn, we failed to find them, and were about to return when we met a shepherd who said we had already passed them. We therefore returned with him, as he told us he was going to the inn, and he showed us a few mounds of earth covered with grass which marked the site of the foundations of John o' Groat's House, but the stones had been removed to build a storehouse, or granary, at a place he pointed out in the distance. We were rather disappointed, as we expected to find some extensive remains, and, seeing they were so very scanty, we wondered why, in a land where stones were so plentiful, some monument or inscribed stone had not been erected to mark the site where this remarkable house once stood, as, in the absence of some one to direct them, strangers, like ourselves, might pass and repass these remains without noticing them. We were not long in reaching the inn, for the shepherd was a big man and took very long strides, and here we wrote a few short letters to our friends to advise them of our safe arrival at John o' Groat's, afterwards walking to the post office about a mile away to post them, and ordering a high tea to be ready for us on our return. It was half-past eight when we finished our tea, after which we were conducted to a little room close to the sea, with two tiny windows in it, one of them without a blind, and with a peat or turf fire burning brightly on the hearth. Mrs. Mackenzie then brought us a small candle, which she lighted, and handed us a book which she said was the "Album," and we amused ourselves with looking over this for the remainder of the evening. It was quite a large volume, dating from the year 1839, and the following official account of the Groat family, headed with a facsimile of the "Groat Arms," was pasted inside the cover:

THE CHIEF OF THE RACE OF JOHN O' GROAT IS ALEXANDER G. GROAT, ESQ., ADVOCATE, EDINBURGH.

NOTICES OF JOHN O' GROAT'S HOUSE.

It is stated in Sinclair's Statistical Accounts of Scotland, vol. 8, page 167 and following:—"In the account of Cannisby by the Rev. John Marison, D.D., that in the reign of James the Fourth, King of Scotland, Malcom, Cairn and John de Groat, supposed to have been brothers and originally from Holland, arrived in Caithness from the south of Scotland, bringing with them a letter in Latin by that King recommending him to the countenance and protection of his loving subjects in the County of Caithness."

It is stated in Chambers's Pictures of Scotland, vol. 2, page 306, "that the foundations or ruins of John o' Groat's House, which is perhaps the most celebrated in the whole world, are still to be seen."

Then followed the names and addresses of visitors extending over a period of thirty-three years, many of them having also written remarks in prose, poetry, or doggerel rhyme, so we found plenty of food for thought and some amusement before we got even half way through the volume. Some of these effusions might be described as of more than ordinary merit, and the remainder as good, bad, and indifferent. Those written in foreign languages—and there were many of them—we could neither read nor understand, but they gave us the impression that the fame of John o' Groat's had spread throughout the civilised world. There were many references to Stroma, or the Island of the Current, which we could see in the Pentland Firth about four miles distant, and to the difficulties and danger the visitors had experienced in crossing that "stormy bit of sea" between it and John o' Groat's. But their chief complaint was that, after travelling so far, there was no house for them to see. They had evidently, like ourselves, expected to find a substantial structure, and the farther they had travelled the greater their disappointment would naturally be. One visitor had expressed his disappointment in a verse more forcible than elegant, but true as regarded the stone.

I went in a boat To see John o' Groat, The place where his home doth lie; But when I got there, The hill was all bare, And the devil a stone saw I.

The following entry also appeared in the Album:—

Elihu Burrit of New Britain, Connecticut, U.S. America, on a walk from Land's End to John o' Groat's, arrived at Huna Inn, upon Monday Sep. 28th, 1863. He visited the site of that famous domicile so celebrated in the world-wide legend for its ingenious construction to promote domestic happiness, and fully realised all he had anticipated in standing on a spot so rich with historical associations and surrounded with such grand and beautiful scenery. He desires also to record his testimony to the hospitality and comfort of the cosy little sea-side Inn, where he was pleasantly housed for the night, and of which he will ever cherish an interesting remembrance.

Saturday, September 16th.

"Now for the shells!" exclaimed my brother, as we awoke early in the morning, for we expected to have a hard day's work before we gathered shells enough to fill our large baskets. So we hurried on with our breakfast, and then, shouldering our hampers, walked quickly along the beach to the place where we had been informed we should find them. When we got there we saw a sight which surely could not have had its parallel in the British Isles, for the beach was white with them for the greater part of two miles. We were greatly astonished, for in some places the beach was so thickly covered that, had we possessed a shovel, we could have filled both our baskets with shells in a very few minutes. We decided therefore to select those best suited to our purpose, and we worked away until we had filled both our hampers. We then carried them one at a time to the "Huna Inn," and arranged with Mr. Mackenzie to have them carefully packed and delivered to the local carrier to be conveyed by road to the steamboat office at Wick, and thence forwarded by water to our home, where we knew their contents would be appreciated for rockery purposes. The whole of our operations were completed by noon, instead of occupying the whole of the day as anticipated, for we had a great advantage in having such an enormous number of shells to select from. Our host told us that farmers occasionally moved them by cart-loads to serve as lime manure on their land. Their accumulation at that particular spot was a mystery which he could not explain beyond the fact that the shells were washed up from the Pentland Firth during the great storms; so we concluded that there must be a land of shell fish in or near that stormy deep, perhaps corresponding with that of the larger fish whose destruction we had seen represented in the Strata of Pomona in the Orkneys.



We must not forget to record, however, that amongst the vast number of shells we had turned over we found some of those lovely little shells known as "John o' Groat's buckies," so highly prized by visitors. They were difficult to find, as they were so very small, but we found quite a number, and considered them to be perfect little gems, and so very pretty that we reserved them for special presents to our friends. We afterwards learned that they were known to science as Cyproe Artoca, or European Cowry.

* * * * *

An interesting account of John o' Groat's House and the shells was written in the year 1698 by the Rev. John Brand, Commissioner of the General Assembly:—

The landing-place was called John o' Groat's House, the northernmost house in Scotland; the man who now liveth in it and keepeth an inn there is called John Grot, who saith his house hath been in the possession of his predecessors of that name for some hundreds of years; which name of Grot is frequent in Caithness.

Upon the sand by John Grot's house are found many small pleasant buckies and shells, beautified by diverse colours, which some use to put upon a string as beads, and account much of their rarity. It is also observed of these shells that not one of them can be found altogether like another, and upon the review of the parcel I had I discovered some difference among them which variety renders them the more beautiful.



After our midday dinner had partially digested, for we had eaten rather too much, we started for Duncansbay Head, following the coast line on an up-gradient until we reached the top, which formed the north-eastern extremity of Scotland, and from where we had to start on Monday morning. It was a lonely spot, and we were the only visitors; but we had a lively time there, as the thousands of wild birds whose homes were in the rocks, judging from the loud noises they made as they new about us in endless processions, resented our intrusion into their sacred domain—hovering around us in every direction. Perhaps they were only anxious to ascertain whether we were friends or foes, but we were very much interested in their strange movements. They appeared to be most numerous on and about two or three perpendicular rocks which rose from the sea like pinnacles to a great height. These rocks were named the "Stacks," or the "Boars of Duncansbay," their sides and summits being only accessible to birds, and forming safe resting and nesting-places for them, and on the top of the highest stack the golden-coloured eagles had for ages reared their young. The "Stacks" might once have formed part of the headland or of some adjacent island which had been wasted away by the winds and waves of ages until only these isolated portions remained, and these were worn into all kinds of crevices and fantastic shapes which impressed us with a sense of their great antiquity. We walked along the top of the cliffs, which here presented the appearance of one vast amphitheatre lined with precipices, with small promontories here and there jutting out into the sea resembling fortresses, some of them having the ruins of ancient castles crowning their highest points. We could scarcely bring our minds to realise that these were the very rocks we had seen from the deck of the s.s. St. Magnus only a few days since. We had passed through so many scenes, and had had so many adventures both by night and day since then, that the lapse of time seemed to us to be more like years than days. We retraced our steps to the head, and stood there for some time watching the ships far out at sea, trying to distinguish the St. Magnus, as it was just about the time she was again due on her outward journey; but the demands of our hungry insides were again claiming urgent attention, and so we hastened our return to the "Huna Inn." On our way we again encountered the shepherd who had shown us the site of John o' Groat's House, and we invited him to look us up in the evening, as we were anxious to get further information about John and his famous house. "Huna Inn," in spite of its disadvantages, was quite a romantic place to stay at, as it was situated almost on the edge of the boiling torrent of the Pentland Firth, which at times was so stormy that the island of Stroma could not be reached for weeks.

The "Swalchie," or whirlpool of Stroma, has been mentioned by many ancient writers, but the most interesting story is that of its origin as given in the old Norse legend headed, "Fenja and Menja," and containing a famous ballad known as the "Grotta Songr," or the "Mill Song," grotta being the Norse for mill, or quern.

Odin had a son by name Skjold from whom the Skjoldungs. He had his throne and ruled in the lands that are now called Denmark but were then called Gotland. Skjold had a son by name Fridleif, who ruled the lands after him. Fridleif's son was Frode. He took the kingdom after his father, at the time when the Emperor Augustus established peace in all the earth, and Christ was born. But Frode being the mightiest King in the Northlands, this peace was attributed to him by all who spake the Danish tongue and the Norsemen called it the Peace of Frode. No man injured the other, even though he might meet, loose or in chains, his father's or brother's bane (murderer). There was no thief or robber so that a gold ring would lie a long time on Jalanger's heath. King Frode sent messengers to Sirthjod, to the King whose name was Fjolner, and bought there two maidservants, whose names were Fenja and Menja. They were large and strong. About this time were found in Denmark two millstones so large that no one had the strength to turn them. But the nature belonged to these millstones that they ground whatever was demanded of them by the miller. The name of the mill was Grotte. But the man to whom King Frode gave the mill was called Hengekjapt. King Frode had the maidservants led to the mill and requested them to grind for him gold and peace and Frode's happiness. Then he gave them no longer time to rest or sleep than while the cuckoo was silent or while they sang a song. It is said they sang the song called the "Grotte Song," and before they ended it they ground out a host against Frode, so that on the same night there came the Sea-King whose name was Mysing and slew Frode and took a large amount of booty. Mysing took with him Grotte and also Fenja and Menja and bade them grind salt, and in the middle of the night they asked Mysing whether he did not have salt enough. He bade them grind more. They ground only a short time longer before the ship sank. But in the ocean arose a whirlpool (maelstrom, mill-stream) in the place where the sea runs into the mill-eye: the Swalchie of Stroma.

The story "Why is the sea salt?" or "How the sea became salt," has appeared in one form or another among many nations of the world, and naturally appealed strongly to the imagination of the youth of a maritime nation like England. The story as told formerly amongst schoolboys was as follows:

Jack had decided to go to sea, but before doing so he went to see his fairy godmother, who had a strange looking old coffee-mill on the mantelshelf in her kitchen. She set the table for tea without anything on it to eat or drink, and then, taking down the old mill, placed it on the table and asked it to grind each article she required. After the tea-pot had been filled, Jack was anxious for something to eat, and said he would like some teacakes, so his fairy godmother said to the mill:

"Mill! Mill! grind away. Buttered tea-cakes now I pray!"

for she knew Jack liked plenty of butter on his cakes, and out they came from the mill until the plate was well filled, and then she said:

"Mill! Mill! rest thee now, Thou hast ground enough I trow,"

and immediately the mill stopped grinding. When Jack told her he was going away on a ship to sea, his fairy godmother made him a present of the old mill, which he would find useful, as it would grind anything he asked it to; but he must be careful to use the same words that he had heard her speak both in starting and stopping the mill. When he got to the ship, he stored the old mill carefully in his box, and had almost forgotten it when as they neared the country they were bound for the ship ran short of potatoes, so Jack told the Captain he would soon find him some, and ran for his mill, which he placed on the deck of the ship, and said to it:

"Mill! Mill! grind away, Let us have some potatoes I pray!"

and immediately the potatoes began to roll out of the mill and over the deck, to the great astonishment and delight of the sailors, who had fine fun gathering them up. Then Jack said to the mill:

"Mill! Mill! rest thee now, Thou hast ground enough I trow,"

and immediately the mill ceased grinding.

The Captain determined to get the mill from Jack, who would not part with it, and tried to steal it, but did not succeed, and when they reached the port, Jack took the mill ashore with him, and rented a shop that happened to be empty, and had a sign-board placed over it with the words painted in large letters, "All sorts of things supplied here on the shortest notice," and he soon got a pile of money, the last order being one from the King, who wanted clothing for his soldiers in a hurry, as war had broken out unexpectedly. Jack's good fortune was soon heard of by the Captain, and when his ship was ready to sail he contrived to get one of his friends to invite Jack to a party that evening, and then with the help of some of his crew he broke into the shop and stole the old mill.

When Jack returned in the morning his mill was gone, and he could just see the sails of the ship far out at sea. But he did not care much, as he had now money enough to keep himself for many years. Meantime the Captain in his hurry to get away had forgotten to bring some things that were wanted, and when he found they had no salt on board, he brought the old mill on deck, and said:

"Mill! Mill! grind away Let us have some salt I pray,"

and immediately the mill began to grind salt at a great speed and presently covered the deck all round where it was working, but the Captain had forgotten the words spoken by Jack when he stopped the mill, and though he used all the words he could think of, the mill kept on grinding, and was rapidly filling every available space on the deck. The Captain then ran to his cabin and brought out his sword, and with a terrific blow he cut the mill in halves; but each piece formed itself into a mill, and both mills continued grinding until the ship sank to the bottom of the sea, where the mills are still grinding in the terrible Swalchie of Stroma, and that is why the water in the sea is salt!

There had been a ferry at John o' Groat's years before our visit, and mails and passengers had been carried across the Firth to and from the Orkney Islands, the distance across being shorter from this point than from any other in Scotland; but for some unexplained reason the service had been discontinued, and the presence of the ferry would probably account for so many names being written in the album. The day was already drawing to a close as we sat down to tea and the good things provided by Mrs. Mackenzie, and we were waited upon by a Scotch lassie, who wore neither shoes nor stockings; but this we found was nothing unusual in the north of Scotland in those days. After tea we adjourned to our room, and sat down in front of our peat fire; but our conversational powers soon exhausted themselves, for we felt uncommonly drowsy after having been exposed so long to the open air. We sat there silently watching the curling smoke as it went up the chimney and dreamily gazing into the caverns which had been formed in the fire below, imagining that we could see all kinds of weird objects therein, and then we thought of the times when we should not have been able to rest so securely and comfortably in the "Huna Inn," when one Scottish clan was trying to exterminate another not so far away from where we were then sitting, for no more apparent reason than that the Scots were born soldiers, and if they had no foreigners to fight they must fight among themselves. We must have been nearly asleep when our reveries were interrupted by the entrance of the shepherd, whom for the moment we had entirely forgotten. He had come in response to our invitation to talk with us about things in general, but particularly about John o' Groat, and we were glad to see him, and we now give—

THE SHEPHERD'S STORY

John o' Groat was a fisherman belonging to Holland who was caught when at sea in a great storm which damaged his sails so that his boat drifted almost helplessly across the sea. When he came in sight of the Scottish coast he was carried with the current into the Pentland Firth, and as he could not repair the sails in the boat and could not get back to Holland with them in their damaged condition, he decided to land on one of the islands and repair them on shore. His wife was very much opposed to his landing on Stroma, as she thought it was a desert island, so he got his boat across from there to the Scottish coast; but when he attempted to land at Huna, the natives opposed his landing, for they thought he was a pirate. Fortunately for him he had a few kegs of gin in his boat, and when the canny Scots saw these they became more friendly, especially as they had a great respect for Holland's gin, and so they allowed him to land, and even helped him to mend his sails. They afterwards allowed him to settle amongst them on condition that he did not attempt to go into the interior of the country, and that he built his house on the seashore. He got on well amongst his new friends, and in time became their chief and had eight sons, and on one festive occasion, when they all came to see him, they quarrelled as to which should have precedence at his table, so John told them that the next time they came he would have matters so arranged as to avoid that kind of thing in the future. He therefore built an entirely new house with eight sides to it and a door in each, and made a table inside of the same octagonal shape, so that when they came to see him again each of them could enter by his own door and sit at his own head of the table.

In reply to our questions the shepherd said he thought this event happened about 350 years ago, but the house had long since disappeared, and only the site of the foundations which he had shown us previously now remained. He also said that heaps of ladies and gentlemen came there to picnic on the site, and he had seen them take even small stones away; but though he had lived there for fifty years, he had never seen John o' Groat's any different from what it was now. We asked him why John did not return to Holland, and he said it was because he had a letter from the king. We thanked the shepherd for his story, and, having suitably rewarded him, bade him farewell and hurried off to bed in the fading light of our rapidly diminishing candle.

Sunday, September 17th.

The strict observance of the Sabbath Day in Scotland was to us a most pleasing feature in Scottish life, and one to which we had been accustomed from early childhood, so we had no desire to depart from it now. We were, therefore, very pleased when Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie invited us to accompany them to the Free Kirk service, and, as half-past ten o'clock was the time fixed for our departure from the inn, we concluded that the kirk could not be far away, as that was the hour that service began in our village church in Cheshire, but we could not remember seeing any kirk in the neighbourhood of the "Huna Inn." We continued walking one mile after another for more than an hour, and must have walked quite four miles before we came in sight of the kirk, and we were then informed that the service did not commence until twelve o'clock! The country through which we passed was very bare, there being a total absence of hedges and trees, so we could see people coming towards the kirk from every direction. Everybody seemed to know everybody else, and, as they came nearer the sacred enclosure, they formed themselves into small groups and stood conversing with each other, chiefly on religious matters, until the minister arrived to take charge of his flock. He was a quaintly dressed and rather elderly man, evidently well known, as he had a nod or a smile of recognition and a friendly word for all. We followed him into the kirk, where we found ourselves in the presence of quite a large congregation, and sat with Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie in their own pew in the rear of the kirk. The form of the service was quite different from that to which we had been accustomed. The congregation stood up while they prayed and sat down while they sang the Psalms, with the exception of one man, who remained standing in what we thought was the clerk's desk immediately below the pulpit. This man acted as leader of the singing, but he failed to get much assistance from the people, and had great difficulty in keeping the singing going. Possibly the failure of the congregational singing might be accounted for by the absence of an organ or other instrument of music to assist and encourage the people to sing, the nearest approach to anything of the kind being the tuning-fork which the conductor held in his hand. There was also the fact that the sitting posture was not the best position for bringing out the powers of the human voice; but we came to the conclusion that music was not looked upon favourably in that remote part of Scotland.

In front of the pulpit there was an enclosure, fenced in by the communion rail, and inside this were seated the elders, or deacons of the church. These were very old men with bent heads and white hair, and had the appearance of centenarians; they were indeed the queerest-looking group of old men we had ever seen assembled together. But it was their noses that chiefly attracted our attention, as they were so very long and crooked, and the strange feature about them was that they were all of the same pattern. Their only rival, as far as we could see, in length of nose was the minister, but we thought he had enlarged his by artificial means, as we found to our surprise that he was addicted to snuff-taking, a habit very prevalent in Scotland in those days.

Then came the sermon. On the pulpit was the Bible, and beside it a substantial box of snuff, to which the minister resorted occasionally in the course of his long discourse. His pinches must have been considerable, for every sniff lasted from two to three seconds, and could be heard distinctly all over the kirk. This had a tendency to distract our attention from his sermon, which, by the way, was a very good one; but, owing to his rather slow delivery, we experienced a feeling of relief when he reached the end, for it had lasted quite an hour.

There was now a slight movement amongst the congregation, which we interpreted as a sign that the service was at an end, and we rose to leave; but, imagine our consternation when our friends told us that what we had listened to was only the first part of the service, and that we must on no account leave, as the second part was to follow immediately. We therefore remained not altogether unwillingly, for we were curious to know what the next service was like. It proved to be almost exactly the same as the first, and we could not distinguish much difference between the two sermons; but we listened attentively, and were convinced that the preacher was a thoroughly conscientious man in spite of his occasional long sniffs of snuff, which were continued as before, but what astonished us was that the old gentleman never once sneezed! It was the most remarkable service we had ever attended, and it concluded exactly at three o'clock, having lasted three hours.

We had then to retrace our four-mile walk to "Huna Inn," but the miles seemed rather longer, as Mrs. Mackenzie could only walk in a leisurely manner and we were feeling very hungry. We whiled away the time by talking about the sermons and the snuff, but chiefly about the deacons and their wonderful noses, and why they were all alike and so strangely crooked. Mr. Mackenzie suggested that they were crooked because if they had grown straight they would have projected over their mouths and prevented them from eating, the crook in them being a provision of nature to avoid this; or, they might have descended from the Romans or some other ancient race who had formerly inhabited the coast of that part of Scotland. Books had been written and sermons preached about noses, and the longer the nose the greater the intellect of the owner was supposed to be. We told our host that there was only one-sixteenth part of an inch between the length of Napoleon's nose and that of Wellington's. We had forgotten which was the longer, but as Wellington's was so conspicuous that he was nicknamed "Nosey" by his troops, and as he had won the great battle of Waterloo, we concluded that it was his, and gave him the benefit of the doubt. We quoted the following lines:

Knows he, that never took a pinch, Nosey, the pleasure thence that flows? Knows he the titillating joy Which my nose knows? O Nose, I am as proud of thee As any mountain of its snows; I gaze on thee, and feel that pride A Roman knows.

Our host confided to us the reason why he was so anxious that we should not leave in the middle of the service. The second service was originally intended for those who had to come long distances to reach the kirk, some of whom came from a place seven miles away, but in late years the two services had become continuous. A few Sundays before our visit some persons had left the kirk at the end of the first part, and in his second sermon the minister had plainly described them as followers of the Devil! so we supposed our host was anxious that we should not be denounced in the same way.

We found our tea-dinner waiting our arrival at the inn. We sat down to it at half-past four, and, as we rose from what was left of it at five o'clock, having worked hard meanwhile, we may safely be credited with having done our duty.

We had a walk with our host along the shore, and had not proceeded far before we saw a dark-looking object some distance away in the sea. We thought it looked like a man in a boat, rising and falling with the waves, but Mr. Mackenzie told us that it was two whales following the herrings that were travelling in shoals round the coasts. We were very much interested in their strange movements, as they were the only whales we ever saw alive, but we could not help feeling sorry for the fish. Evening was coming on as we re-entered "Huna Inn," and when we were again seated before our turf fire, joined by our host and hostess, our conversation was chiefly on the adventures we had already had, the great walk we were to begin on the morrow, and the pleasure it had given us to see the manifest and steadfast determination of the people at the kirk to observe the Commandment of the God of the Sabbath, "REMEMBER THAT THOU KEEP HOLY THE SABBATH DAY." We wondered how much the prosperity of the Scottish nation and its representatives in every part of the "wide, wide world" was attributable to their strict observance of the Sabbath. Who knows?



WE BEGIN OUR JOURNEY

Monday, September 18th.

We rose early and walked along the beach to Duncansbay Head, or Rongisby as the old maps have it, gathering a few of those charming little shells called John o'Groat Buckies by the way. After walking round the site of John o'Groat's house, we returned to our comfortable quarters at the Huna Inn for breakfast. John o'Groat seems to have acted with more wisdom than many entrusted with the affairs of a nation. When his sons quarrelled for precedence at his table, he consoled them with the promise that when the next family gathering took place the matter should be settled to the satisfaction of all. During the interval he built a house having eight sides, each with a door and window, with an octagonal table in the centre so that each of his eight sons could enter at his own door and sit at his own side or "head" of the table. By this arrangement—which reminded us of King Arthur's use of his round table—he dispelled the animosity which previously prevailed. After breakfast, and in the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie, we made an entry in the famous Album with name and address, object of journey, and exact time of departure, and they promised to reserve a space beneath the entry to record the result, which was to be posted to them immediately we reached our journey's end.



It was about half-past ten o'clock when we started on our long walk along a circuitous and unknown route from John o'Groat's to Land's End. Our host and hostess stood watching our departure and waving adieux until we disappeared in the distance. We were in high spirits, and soon reached the junction of roads where we turned to the left towards Wick. The first part of our walk was through the Parish of Canisbay, in the ancient records of which some reference is made to the more recent representatives of the Groat family, but as these were made two hundred years ago, they were now almost illegible. Our road lay through a wild moorland district with a few farms and cottages here and there, mainly occupied by fishermen. There were no fences to the fields or roads, and no bushes or trees, and the cattle were either herded or tied to stakes.

After passing through Canisbay, we arrived at the most northerly house in the Parish of Wick, formerly a public-house, and recognised as the half-way house between Wick and John o'Groat's. We found it occupied as a farm by Mr. John Nicolson, and here we saw the skeleton of a whale doing duty as a garden fence. The dead whale, seventy feet in length, had been found drifting in the sea, and had been hauled ashore by the fishermen. Mr. Nicolson had an ingenious son, who showed us a working sun-dial in the garden in front of the house which he had constructed out of a portion of the backbone, and in the same bone he had also formed a curious contrivance by which he could tell the day of the month. He told us he was the only man that studied painting in the North, and invited us into the house, wherein several rooms he showed us some of his paintings, which were really excellent considering they were executed in ordinary wall paint. His mother informed us that he began to study drawing when he was ill with a slow fever, but not bed-fast. Two of the pictures, that of an old bachelor and a Scotch lassie, a servant, were very good indeed. We also saw a picture of an old woman, a local celebrity, about a hundred years old, which was considered to be an excellent likeness, and showed the old lady's eyes so sunk in her head as to be scarcely visible. We considered that we had here found one of Nature's artists, who would probably have made a name for himself if given the advantages so many have who lack the ability, for he certainly possessed both the imaginative faculty and no small degree of dexterity in execution. He pointed out to us the house of a farmer over the way who slept in the Parish of Wick and took his meals in that of Canisbay, the boundary being marked by a chimney in the centre of the roof. He also informed us that his brother accompanied Elihu Burritt, the American blacksmith, for some distance when he walked from London to John o'Groat's.

We were now about eleven miles from Wick, and as Mr. Nicolson told us of an old castle we had missed, we turned back across the moors for about a mile and a half to view it. He warned us that we might see a man belonging to the neighbourhood who was partly insane, and who, roaming amongst the castle ruins, usually ran straight towards any strangers as if to do them injury; but if we met him we must not be afraid, as he was perfectly harmless. We had no desire to meet a madman, and luckily, although we kept a sharp look-out, we did not see him. We found the ruined castle resting on a rock overlooking the sea with the rolling waves dashing on its base below; it was connected with the mainland by a very narrow strip broken through in one place, and formerly crossed by a drawbridge. As this was no longer available, it was somewhat difficult to scale the embankment opposite; still we scrambled up and passed triumphantly through the archway into the ruins, not meeting with that resistance we fancied we should have done in the days of its daring owner. A portion only of the tower remained, as the other part had fallen about two years before our visit. The castle, so tradition stated, had been built about the year 1100 by one Buchollie, a famous pirate, who owned also another castle somewhere in the Orkneys. How men could carry on such an unholy occupation amidst such dangerous surroundings was a mystery to us.



On our return we again saw our friend Mr. Nicolson, who told us there were quite a number of castles in Caithness, as well as Pictish forts and Druidical circles, a large proportion of the castles lying along the coast we were traversing. He gave us the names of some of them, and told us that they materially enhanced the beauty of this rock-bound coast. He also described to us a point of the coast near Ackergill, which we should pass, where the rocks formed a remarkably perfect profile of the Great Duke of Wellington, though others spoke of it as a black giant. It could only be seen from the sea, but was marvellously correct and life-like, and of gigantic proportions.

Acting on Mr. Nicolson's instructions, we proceeded along the beach to Keiss Castle, and ascended to its second storey by means of a rustic ladder. It was apparently of a more recent date than Buchollie, and a greater portion of it remained standing. A little to the west of it we saw another and more modern castle, one of the seats of the Duke of Portland, who, we were told, had never yet visited it. Before reaching the village of Keiss, we came to a small quay, where we stayed a short time watching the fishermen getting their smacks ready before sailing out to sea, and then we adjourned to the village inn, where we were provided with a first-class tea, for which we were quite ready. The people at the inn evidently did not think their business inconsistent with religion, for on the walls of the apartment where we had our tea were hanging two pictures of a religious character, and a motto "Offer unto God thanksgiving," and between them a framed advertisement of "Edinburgh Ales"!

After tea we continued our journey until we came to the last house in the village of Keiss, a small cottage on the left-hand side of the road, and here we called to inspect a model of John o'Groat's house, which had been built by a local stonemason, and exhibited at the great Exhibition in London in 1862. Its skilful builder became insane soon after he had finished it, and shortly afterwards died. It was quite a palatial model and much more handsome than its supposed original was ever likely to have been. It had eight doors with eight flights of steps leading up to them, and above were eight towers with watchmen on them, and inside the house was a table with eight sides made from wood said to have been from the original table in the house of Groat, and procured from one of his descendants. The model was accompanied by a ground plan and a print of the elevation taken from a photo by a local artist. There was no charge for admission or for looking at the model, but a donation left with the fatherless family was thankfully received.

We now walked for miles along the seashore over huge sand-hills with fine views of the herring-boats putting out to sea. We counted fifty-six in one fleet, and the number would have been far greater had not Noss Head intervened to obstruct our view, as many more went out that night from Wick, although the herring season was now nearly over. We passed Ackergill Tower, the residence of Sir George Dunbar, and about two miles farther on we came to two old castles quite near to each other, which were formerly the strongholds of the Earls of Caithness. They were named Girnigoe and Sinclair. Girnigoe was the oldest, and under the ruins of the keep was a dismal dungeon.

It was now getting dark, and not the pleasantest time to view old castles surrounded by black rocks with the moan of the sea as it invaded the chasms of the rocks on which they stood. Amongst these lonely ruins we spoke of the past, for had our visit been three centuries earlier, the dismal sounds from the sea below would have mingled with those from the unfortunate young man chained up in that loathsome dungeon, whose only light came from a small hole high up in the wall. Such was John, Master of Caithness, the eldest son of the fifth Sinclair, Earl of Caithness, who is said to have been imprisoned here because he had wooed and won the affections of the daughter of a neighbouring laird, marked out by his father, at that time a widower, for himself. He was confined in that old dungeon for more than six long years before death released him from his inhuman parent.

During his imprisonment John had three keepers appointed over him—Murdoch Roy and two brothers named Ingram and David Sinclair. Roy attended him regularly, and did all the menial work, as the other two keepers were kinsmen of the earl, his father, who had imprisoned him. Roy was sorry for the unfortunate nobleman, and arranged a plot to set him at liberty, which was unfortunately discovered by John's brother William, who bore him no good will. William told his father, the earl, who immediately ordered Roy to be executed. The poor wretch was accordingly brought out and hanged on the common gibbet of the castle without a moment being allowed him to prepare for his final account.

Soon afterwards, in order to avenge the death of Roy, John, who was a man of great bodily strength and whose bad usage and long imprisonment had affected his mind, managed to seize his brother William on the occasion of his visit to the dungeon and strangle him. This only deepened the earl's antipathy towards his unhappy son, and his keepers were encouraged to put him to death. The plan adopted was such as could only have entered the imagination of fiends, for they withheld food from their prisoner for the space of five days, and then set before him a piece of salt beef of which he ate voraciously. Soon after, when he called for water, they refused to give him any, and he died of raging thirst. Another account said they gave him brandy, of which he drank so copiously that he died raving mad. In any case, there is no doubt whatever that he was barbarously done to death.



Every castle along the seacoast had some story of cruelty connected with it, but the story of Girnigoe was perhaps the worst of all, and we were glad to get away from a place with such dismal associations.

About a hundred years after this sad event the Clan of the Campbells of Glenorchy declared war on the Sinclairs of Keiss, and marched into Caithness to meet them; but the Sinclairs instead of going out to meet them at the Ord of Caithness, a naturally fortified position, stayed at home, and the Campbells took up a strong position at Altimarloch, about two miles from Wick. The Sinclairs spent the night before the battle drinking and carousing, and then attacked the Campbells in the strong position they had taken up, with the result that the Sinclairs were routed and many of them perished.

They meet, they close in deadly strife, But brief the bloody fray; Before the Campbells' furious charge The Caithness ranks give way.

The shrieking mother wrung her hands, The maiden tore her hair, And all was lamentation loud, And terror, and despair.

It was commonly said that the well-known quicksteps, "The Campbells are coming" and the "Braes of Glenorchy" obtained their names from this raid.

The Sinclairs of Keiss were a powerful and warlike family, and they soon regained their position. It was a pleasing contrast to note that in 1765 Sir William Sinclair of Keiss had laid aside his sword, embracing the views held by the Baptists, and after being baptized in London became the founder of that denomination in Caithness and a well-known preacher and writer of hymns.

In his younger days he was in the army, where he earned fame as an expert swordsman, his fame in that respect spreading throughout the countryside. Years after he had retired from the service, while sitting in his study one forenoon intently perusing a religious work, his valet announced the arrival of a stranger who wished to see him. The servant was ordered to show him into the apartment, and in stalked a strong muscular-looking man with a formidable Andrea Ferrara sword hanging by his side, and, making a low obeisance, he thus addressed the knight:

"Sir William, I hope you will pardon my intrusion. I am a native of England and a professional swordsman. In the course of my travels through Scotland, I have not yet met with a gentleman able to cope with me in the noble science of swordsmanship. Since I came to Caithness I have heard that you are an adept with my favourite weapon, and I have called to see if you would do me the honour to exchange a few passes with me just in the way of testing our respective abilities."

Sir William was both amused and astonished at this extraordinary request, and replied that he had long ago thrown aside the sword, and, except in case of necessity, never intended to use it any more. But the stranger would take no denial, and earnestly insisted that he would favour him with a proof of his skill.

"Very well," said Sir William, "to please you I shall do so," and, rising and fetching his sword, he desired the stranger, who was an ugly-looking fellow, to draw and defend himself. After a pass or two Sir William, with a dexterous stroke, cut off a button from the vest of his opponent.

"Will that satisfy you," inquired Sir William; "or shall I go a little deeper and draw blood?"

"Oh, I am perfectly satisfied," said the other. "I find I have for once met a gentleman who knows how to handle his sword."

In about half a mile after leaving the ruins of these old castles we saw the Noss Head Lighthouse, with its powerful light already flashing over the darkening seas, and we decided to visit it. We had to scale several fences, and when we got there we found we had arrived long after the authorised hours for the admission of visitors. We had therefore some difficulty in gaining an entrance, as the man whose attention we had attracted did not at first understand why we could not come again the next day. When we explained the nature of our journey, he kindly admitted us through the gate. The lighthouse and its surroundings were scrupulously clean, and if we had been Her Majesty's Inspectors of Lighthouses, if such there be, we could not have done otherwise than report favourably of our visit. The attendants were very kind to us, one of them accompanying us to the top, and as the lighthouse was 175 feet high, we had a great number of steps to climb. We had never seen the interior of a lighthouse before, and were greatly interested in the wonderful mechanism by which the flashlight was worked. We were much impressed by the incalculable value of these national institutions, especially in such dangerous positions as we knew from experience prevailed on those stormy coasts. We were highly delighted with our novel adventure, and, after regaining the entrance, we walked briskly away; but it was quite dark before we had covered the three miles that separated the lighthouse from the fishery town of Wick. Here we procured suitable lodgings, and then hurried to the post office for the letters that waited us, which we were delighted to read, for it seemed ages since we left home.

(Distance walked twenty-five miles.)



Tuesday, September 19th.

We had our first experience of a herring breakfast, and were surprised to find how delicious they tasted when absolutely fresh. There was an old proverb in Wick: "When the herrings come in, the doctors go out!" which may indicate that these fish had some medicinal value; but more likely the saying referred to the period of plenty following that of want and starvation. We went down to the quay and had a talk with some of the fishermen whom we met returning from their midnight labours. They told us they had not caught many herrings that night, but that the season generally had been a good one, and they would have money enough to support themselves through the coming winter. There were about nine hundred boats in the district, and sometimes over a thousand, all employed in the fishing industry; each boat was worked by four men and one boy, using nets 850 yards long. The herrings appeared about the second week in August and remained until the end of September, but the whales swallowed barrels of them at one "jow."

We called at the steamboat depot and found that our hampers of shells had already arrived, and would be sent forward on the St. Magnus; next we went to get our hair and beards trimmed by the Wick barber. He was a curious old gentleman and quite an orator, and even at that early hour had one customer in hand while another was waiting to be shaved, so we had of course to wait our turn. The man who was waiting began to express his impatience in rather strong language, but the barber was quite equal to the occasion, and in the course of a long and eloquent oration, while he was engaged with the customer he had in hand, he told him that when he came into a barber's shop he should have the calmness of mind to look quietly around and note the sublimity of the place, which ought to be sufficient to enable him to overcome such signs of impatience as he had exhibited. We were quite sure that the barber's customer did not understand one-half the big words addressed to him, but they had the desired effect, and he waited patiently until his turn came to be shaved. He was a dark-complexioned seafaring man, and had evidently just returned from a long sea voyage, as the beard on his chin was more like the bristles on a blacking-brush, and the operation of removing them more like mowing than shaving. When completed, the barber held out his hand for payment. The usual charge must have been a penny, for that was the coin he placed in the barber's hand. But it was now the barber's turn. Drawing himself up to his full height, with a dignified but scornful expression on his face, he pointed with his razor to the penny he held in his other hand, which remained open, and exclaimed fiercely, "This! for a month's shave!" Another penny was immediately added, and his impatient customer quickly and quietly departed.

It was now our turn for beard and hair trimming, but we had been so much amused at some of the words used by the barber that, had it not been for his awe-inspiring look, the scissors he now held in his hand, and the razors that were so near to us, we should have failed to suppress our laughter. The fact was that the shop was the smallest barber's establishment we had ever patronised, and the dingiest-looking little place imaginable, the only light being from a very small window at the back of the shop. To apply the words sublime and sublimity to a place like this was ludicrous in the extreme. It was before this window that we sat while our hair was being cut; but as only one side of the head could be operated upon at once, owing to the scanty light, we had to sit before it sideways, and then to reverse our position.

We have heard it said that every man's hair has a stronger growth on one side of his head than the other, but whether this barber left more hair on the strong side or not we did not know. In any case, the difference between the two sides, both of hair and beard, after the barber's operation was very noticeable. The only sublime thing about the shop was the barber himself, and possibly he thought of himself when speaking of its sublimity. He was a well-known character in Wick, and if his lot had been cast in a more expansive neighbourhood he might have filled a much higher position. He impressed us very much, and had we visited Wick again we should certainly have paid him a complimentary visit. We then purchased a few prints of the neighbourhood at Mr. Johnston's shop, and were given some information concerning the herring industry. It appeared that this industry was formerly in the hands of the Dutch, who exploited the British coasts as well as their own, for the log of the Dutillet, the ship which brought Prince Charles Edward to Scotland in 1745, records that on August 25th it joined two Dutch men-of-war and a fleet of herring craft off Rongisby.



In the early part of the fourteenth century there arose a large demand for this kind of fish by Roman Catholics both in the British Isles and on the Continent. The fish deserted the Baltic and new herring fields were sought, while it became necessary to find some method of preserving them. The art of curing herrings was discovered by a Dutchman named Baukel. Such was the importance attached to this discovery that the Emperor Charles V caused a costly memorial to be erected over his grave at Biervlet. The trade remained in the hands of the Dutch for a long time, and the cured herrings were chiefly shipped to Stettin, and thence to Spain and other Roman Catholic countries, large profits being made. In 1749, however, a British Fishery Society was established, and a bounty of L50 offered on every ton of herrings caught. In 1803 an expert Dutchman was employed to superintend the growing industry, and from 1830 Wick took the lead in the herring industry, which in a few years' time extended all round the coasts, the piles of herring-barrels along the quay at Wick making a sight worth seeing.

We had not gone far when we turned aside to visit the ruins of Wick Castle, which had been named by the sailors "The Auld Man o'Wick." It was built like most of the others we had seen, on a small promontory protected by the sea on three sides, but there were two crevices in the rock up which the sea was rushing with terrific force. The rock on which its foundations rested we estimated to be about 150 feet high, and there was only a narrow strip of land connecting it with the mainland. The solitary tower that remained standing was about fifty feet high, and apparently broader at the top than at the bottom, being about ten or twelve yards in length and breadth, with the walls six or seven feet thick. The roar of the water was like the sound of distant thunder, lending a melancholy charm to the scene. It was from here that we obtained our first land view of those strange-looking hills in Caithness called by the sailors, from their resemblance to the breasts of a maiden, the Maiden's Paps. An old man directed us the way to Lybster by what he called the King's Highway, and looking back from this point we had a fine view of the town of Wick and its surroundings.

Taught by past experience, we had provided ourselves with a specially constructed apparatus for tea-making, with a flask to fit inside to carry milk, and this we used many times during our journey through the Highlands of Scotland. We also carried a reserve stock of provisions, since we were often likely to be far away from any human habitation. To-day was the first time we had occasion to make use of it, and we had our lunch not in the room of an inn, but sitting amongst the heather under the broad blue canopy of heaven. It was a gloriously fine day, but not a forerunner of a fine day on the morrow, as after events showed. We had purchased six eggs at a farmhouse, for which we were only charged fourpence, and with a half-pound of honey and an enormous oatmeal cake—real Scotch—we had a jovial little picnic and did not fare badly. We had many a laugh at the self-satisfied sublimity of our friend the barber, but the sublimity here was real, surrounded as we were by magnificent views of the distant hills, and through the clear air we could see the mountains on the other side of the Moray Firth probably fifty miles distant. Our road was very hilly, and devoid of fences or trees or other objects to obstruct our view, so much so that at one point we could see two milestones, the second before we reached the first.

We passed Loch Hempriggs on the right of our road, with Iresgoe and its Needle on the seacoast to the left, also an old ruin which we were informed was a "tulloch," but we did not know the meaning of the word. After passing the tenth milestone from Wick, we went to look at an ancient burial-ground which stood by the seaside about a field's breadth from our road. The majority of the gravestones were very old, and whatever inscriptions they ever had were now worn away by age and weather; some were overgrown with grass and nettles, while in contrast to these stood some modern stones of polished granite. The inscriptions on these stones were worded differently from those places farther south. The familiar words "Sacred to the memory of" did not appear, and the phrasing appeared rather in the nature of a testimonial to the benevolence of the bereft. We copied two of the inscriptions:

ERECTED BY ROBERT WALLACE, MERCHANT, LYBSTER, TO THE MEMORY OF HIS SPOUSE CHARLLOT SIMPSON WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE NOV. 21 1845 AGED 30 YEARS. Lovely in Life.

PLACED BY JOHN SUTHERLAND, FISHERMAN, LYBSTER, IN MEMORY OF HIS WIFE WILLIAMINIA POLSON WHO DIED 28TH MAY 1867 AGED 29 YEARS. At Death still lovely.

In the yard we noticed a large number of loose stones and the remains of a wall which we supposed had been part of the kirk. The name of the village near here was Mid Clyth, and the ruins those of an old Roman Catholic chapel last used about four hundred years ago. Several attempts had been made to obtain power to remove the surplus stones, but our informant stated that although they had only about a dozen Romanists in the county, they were strong enough to prevent this being done, and it was the only burial-ground between there and Wick. He also told us that there were a thousand volunteers in Caithness.



The people in the North of Caithness in directing us on our way did not tell us to turn to right or left, but towards the points of the compass—say to the east or the west as the case might be, and then turn south for a given number of chains. This kind of information rather puzzled us, as we had no compass, nor did we know the length of a chain. It seemed to point back to a time when there were no roads at all in that county. We afterwards read that Pennant, the celebrated tourist, when visiting Caithness in 1769, wrote that at that time there was not a single cart, nor mile of road properly so called in the county. He described the whole district as little better than an "immense morass, with here and there some fruitful spots of oats and bere (barley), and much coarse grass, almost all wild, there being as yet very little cultivated." And he goes on to add:

Here are neither barns nor granaries; the corn is thrashed out and preserved in the chaff in bykes, which are stacks in the shape of beehives thatched quite round. The tender sex (I blush for the Caithnessians) are the only animals of burden; they turn their patient backs to the dunghills and receive in their cassties or straw baskets as much as their lords and masters think fit to fling in with their pitchforks, and then trudge to the fields in droves.

A more modern writer, however, thought that Pennant must have been observant but not reflective, and wrote:

It is not on the sea coast that woman looks on man as lord and master. The fishing industry more than any other leads to great equality between the sexes. The man is away and the woman conducts all the family affairs on land. Home means all the comfort man can enjoy! His life is one persistent calling for self-reliance and independence and equally of obedience to command.

The relations Pennant quoted were not of servility, but of man assisting woman to do what she regarded as her natural work.

To inland folk like ourselves it was a strange sight to see so many women engaged in agricultural pursuits, but we realised that the men had been out fishing in the sea during the night and were now in bed. We saw one woman mowing oats with a scythe and another following her, gathering them up and binding them into sheaves, while several others were cutting down the oats with sickles; we saw others driving horses attached to carts. The children, or "bairns," as they were called here, wore neither shoes nor stockings, except a few of the very young ones, and all the arable land was devoted to the culture of oats and turnips.

We passed through Lybster, which in Lancashire would only be regarded as a small village, but here was considered to be a town, as it could boast of a population of about eight hundred people. We made due note of our reaching what was acknowledged to be the second plantation of trees in the county; there were six only in the entire county of Caithness, and even a sight like this was cheery in these almost treeless regions.

An elderly and portly-looking gentleman who was on the road in front of us awaited our arrival, and as an introduction politely offered us a pinch of snuff out of his well-filled snuff-box, which we accepted. We tried to take it, but the application of a small portion to our noses caused us to sneeze so violently that the gentleman roared with laughter at our expense, and was evidently both surprised and amused at our distress. We were soon good friends, however, and he was as pleased with our company as we were with his, but we accepted no more pinches of snuff in Scotland. He had many inquiries to make about the method of farming in Cheshire and regarding the rotation of crops. We informed him that potatoes were the first crop following grass grown in our neighbourhood, followed by wheat in the next year, and oats and clover afterwards—the clover being cut for two years. "And how many years before wheat again?" he asked; but this question we could not answer, as we were not sufficiently advanced in agricultural knowledge to undergo a very serious examination from one who was evidently inclined to dive deeply into the subject. As we walked along, we noticed a stone on the slope of a mountain like those we had seen at Stenness in the Orkneys, but no halo of interest could be thrown around it by our friend, who simply said it had been there "since the world began." Near Lybster we had a good view of the Ord of Caithness, a black-looking ridge of mountains terminating in the Maiden's Paps, which were later to be associated with one of the most difficult and dangerous traverses we ever experienced.

The night was now coming on, and we hurried onwards, passing two old castles, one to the left and the other to the right of our road, and we noticed a gate, the posts of which had been formed from the rib-bones of a monster whale, forming an arch ornamented in the centre by a portion of the backbone of the same creature. In the dark the only objects we could distinguish were the rocks on the right and the lights of two lighthouses, one across Dornoch Firth and the other across Moray Firth. In another mile and a half after leaving the farmer, who had accompanied us for some miles and who, we afterwards learned, was an old bachelor, we were seated in the comfortable hotel at Dunbeath. The landlord was civil and communicative, and we sat talking to him about the great difference between Caithness and Cheshire, and the relative values of turf and coal. He informed us that there was very little coal consumed in the county of Caithness, as the English coal was dear and the Scotch coal bad, while the peat was of good quality, the darkest-looking being the richest and the best.

Our tea was now ready, and so were we, as we had walked fifteen miles since our lunch in the heather. We were ushered into the parlour, where we were delighted to find a Cheshire gentleman, who told us he had been out shooting, and intended to leave by the coach at two a.m. Hearing that two pedestrians had arrived, he had given up his bed, which he had engaged early in the day, and offered to rest on the sofa until the arrival of the mail-coach. We thanked him for his kind consideration, for we were tired and footsore. Who the gentleman was we did not discover; he knew Warrington and the neighbourhood, had visited Mr. Lyon of Appleton Hall near that town, and knew Mr. Patten of Bank Hall, who he said was fast getting "smoked out" of that neighbourhood. We retired early, and left him in full possession of the coffee-room and its sofa.

At two o'clock in the morning we were wakened by the loud blowing of a horn, which heralded the approach of the mail-coach, and in another minute the trampling of horses' feet beneath our window announced its arrival. We rose hurriedly and rushed to the window, but in the hurry my brother dashed against a table, and down went something with a smash; on getting a light we found it was nothing more valuable than a water-bottle and glass, the broken pieces of which we carefully collected together, sopping up the water as best we could. We were in time to see our friend off on the coach, with three horses and an enormous light in front, which travelled from Thurso to Helmsdale, a distance of fifty-eight miles, at the rate of eight miles per hour.

(Distance walked twenty-one and a half miles.)

Wednesday, September 20th.

We rose early, and while waiting for our breakfast talked with an old habitue of the hotel, who, after drawing our attention to the weather, which had now changed for the worse, told us that the building of the new pier, as he called it, at Wick had been in progress for seven or eight years, but the sea there was the stormiest in Britain, and when the wind came one way the waves washed the pier down again, so that it was now no bigger than it was two years ago. He also told us he could remember the time when there was no mail-coach in that part of the country, the letters for that neighbourhood being sent to a man, a tailor by trade, who being often very busy, sent his wife to deliver them, so that Her Majesty's mails were carried by a female!



Almost the last piece of advice given us before leaving home was, "Mind that you always get a good breakfast before starting out in a morning," and fortunately we did not neglect it on this occasion, for it proved one of the worst day's walks that we ever experienced. Helmsdale was our next stage, and a direct road led to it along the coast, a distance of sixteen miles. But my brother was a man of original ideas, and he had made up his mind that we should walk there by an inland route, and climb over the Maiden's Paps mountain on our way.

The wind had increased considerably during the night, and the rain began to fall in torrents as we left the Dunbeath Inn, our mackintoshes and leggings again coming in useful. The question now arose whether we should adhere to our original proposal, or proceed to Helmsdale by the shortest route. Our host strongly advised us to keep to the main road, but we decided, in spite of our sore feet and the raging elements, to cross over the Maiden's Paps. We therefore left the main road and followed a track which led towards the mountains and the wild moors. We had not gone very far when we met a disconsolate sportsman, accompanied by his gillies and dogs, who was retreating to the inn which he had left early in the morning. He explained to us how the rain would spoil his sport amongst the grouse, though he consoled himself by claiming that it had been one of the finest sporting seasons ever known in Caithness. As an illustration, he said that on the eighteenth day of September he had been out with a party who had shot forty-one and a half brace of grouse to each gun, besides other game. The average weight of grouse on the Scotch moors was twenty-five ounces, but those on the Caithness moors were heavier, and averaged twenty-five and a half ounces.

He was curious to know where we were going, and when we told him, he said we were attempting an impossible feat in such awful weather, and strongly advised us to return to the hotel, and try the journey on a finer day. We reflected that the fine weather had now apparently broken, and it would involve a loss of valuable time if we accepted his advice to wait for a finer day, so we pressed forwards for quite two hours across a dreary country, without a tree or a house or a human being to enliven us on our way. Fortunately the wind and rain were behind us, and we did not feel their pressure like our friend the sportsman, who was going in the opposite direction. At last we came to what might be called a village, where there were a few scattered houses and a burial-ground, but no kirk that we could see. Near here we crossed a stream known as Berriedale Water, and reached the last house, a farm, where our track practically ended. We knocked at the door, which was opened by the farmer himself, and his wife soon provided us with tea and oatmeal cake, which we enjoyed after our seven or eight-mile walk. The wind howled in the chimney and the rain rattled on the window-panes as we partook of our frugal meal, and we were inclined to exclaim with the poet whose name we knew not:

The day is cold and dark and dreary, It rains, and the wind is never weary.

The people at the farm had come there from South Wales and did not know much about the country. All the information they could give us was that the place we had arrived at was named Braemore, and that on the other side of the hills, which they had never crossed themselves, there was a forest with no roads through it, and if we got there, we should have to make our way as best we could across the moors to Helmsdale. They showed us the best way to reach the foot of the mountain, but we found the going much worse than we anticipated, since the storm had now developed into one of great magnitude. Fortunately the wind was behind us, but the higher we ascended the stronger it became, and it fairly took our breath away even when we turned our heads towards it sideways, which made us realise how impossible it was for us to turn back, however much we might wish to do so; consequently we struggled onwards, occasionally taking advantage of the shelter of some projecting rock to recover our breathing—a very necessary proceeding, for as we approached the summit the rain became more like sleet, the wind was very cold, and the rocks were in a frozen and slippery condition. We were in great danger of being blown over and losing our lives, and as we could no longer walk upright in safety, we knelt down, not without a prayer to heaven as we continued on our way. Thus we crawled along upon our hands and knees over the smooth wind-swept summit of the Maiden's Paps, now one immense surface of ice. The last bit was the worst of all, for here the raging elements struck us with full and uninterrupted force. We crossed this inches at a time, lying flat on the smooth rock with our faces downwards. Our feelings of thankfulness to the Almighty may be imagined when we finally reached the other side in safety.

Given a fine day we should have had a glorious view from this point, and, as it was, in spite of the rain we could see a long distance, but the prospect was far from encouraging. A great black rock, higher than that we had climbed, stood before us, with its summit hidden in the clouds, and a wide expanse of hills and moors, but not a house or tree so far as the eye could reach. This rather surprised us, as we expected the forest region to be covered with trees which would afford us some shelter on our farther way. We learned afterwards that the "forest" was but a name, the trees having disappeared ages ago from most of these forests in the northern regions of Scotland.

We were wet through to the skin and shivering with cold as we began to descend the other side of the Maiden's Paps—a descent we found both difficult and dangerous. It looked an awful place below us—a wild amphitheatre of dreary hills and moors!

We had no compass to guide us, and in the absence of light from the sun we could not tell in what direction we were travelling, so with our backs towards the hills we had crossed, we made our way across the bog, now saturated with water. We could hear it gurgling under our feet at every stride, even when we could not see it, and occasionally we slipped into holes nearly knee-deep in water. After floundering in the bog for some time, and not knowing which way to turn, as we appeared to be surrounded with hills, we decided to try to walk against the wind which was blowing from the sea, for we knew that if we could reach the coast we should also reach the highway, which ran alongside it. But we soon had to give in, for we came to great rocks impossible for us to scale, so we had to abandon this direction and try another. The rain still continued, and our hands had now been bleached quite white with the rain beating on them, just like those of a washerwoman after a heavy day's washing. We knew that the night would shortly be coming on, and the terrible thought of a dark night on the moors began to haunt us. If we could only have found a track we should not have cared, but we were now really LOST.

We were giving way to despair and beginning to think it might be a question of life or death when a bright thought suddenly struck us, and we wondered why we had not thought of it before. Why not follow the water, which would be sure to be running towards the sea? This idea inspired us with hope, and seemed to give us new life; but it was astonishing what a time elapsed before we found a running stream, for the water appeared to remain where it fell. At length we came to a small stream, the sight of which gave us renewed energy, and we followed it joyfully on its downward course. Presently we saw a few small bushes; then we came to a larger stream, and afterwards to a patch of grassland which clearly at one time had been under cultivation. At last we came to trees under which we could see some deer sheltering from the storm: by this time the stream had become a raging torrent. We stood watching the deer for a moment, when suddenly three fine stags rushed past us and dashed into the surging waters of the stream, which carried them down a considerable distance before they could land on its rocky bank on the other side. It was an exciting adventure, as the stags were so near us, and with their fine antlers presented an imposing appearance.

We now crossed over some heather in order to reach a small path which we could see alongside the swollen river. How pleased we were when we knew we were out of danger! It seemed to us like an escape from a terrible fate. We remembered how Mungo Park, when alone in the very heart of Africa, and in the midst of a great wilderness, derived consolation from very much smaller sources than the few trees which now cheered us on our way. The path became broader as we passed through the grounds of Lord Galloway's hunting-box, and we soon reached the highway, where we crossed the boiling torrent rushing along with frightful rapidity on its way to the sea. The shades of night were coming on as we knocked at the door of the keeper's cottage, and judge of our surprise when we were informed that, after walking from ten o'clock in the morning to six o'clock at night, we were only about six miles from Dunbeath, whence we had started that morning, and had still about ten miles to walk before we could reach Helmsdale.

We were almost famished with hunger, but we were lucky enough to secure a splendid tea at the keeper's cottage. Fortunately for us the good lady of the house had provided a sumptuous repast for some sporting gentlemen she was expecting, but who had been prevented from coming owing to the storm. We kept no record of our gastronomical performances on this occasion, but we can safely state that of a whole rabbit very little remained, and the same remark would apply to a whole series of other delicacies which the keeper's wife had so kindly and thoughtfully provided for her more distinguished but absent guests. We took the opportunity of drying some of our wet clothing, and before we finished our tea the keeper himself came in, to whom we related our adventures. Though accustomed to the broken regions and wild solitudes we had passed through, he was simply astounded that we had come over them safely, especially on such a day.