DUNROBIN CASTLE. CAPE WRATH. 163 



pieces of ordnance, " like retired veterans," still do duty so far as appearances 

 go, but moat and portcullis are gone. To the ancient building, erected in the 

 thirteenth century,* considerable additions have been lately made ; and, happily 

 for the picturesque, they are in strict keeping with the original. The interior 

 of the Castle has been kept as much as possible in its primitive simplicity. 



The country and grounds around Dunrobin, from their mixture of cultivation 

 with mountain scenery, as well as their extent and variety, are highly pic- 

 turesque. One of the most perfect Pictish towers that ever delighted an antiquary, 

 stands on the east of the Castle ; and, on digging at the spot lately, some bones 

 and charcoal were found. Golspie-burnf flows through a deep wooded ravine, 

 that occasionally may vie with the banks of the Findhorn in wildness and 

 beauty, and is further enriched by a succession of picturesque waterfalls. The 

 deer forests are extensive, well-stocked, and such as would have afforded ample 

 scope to the most chase-loving of Scottish sovereigns. 



The whole of the immense tract, called " Lord Reay's country," and from 

 time immemorial the habitation of the clan Mackay, has now been added to 

 the other estates of the Sutherland family. It abounds in wild, majestic scenery; 

 its lakes, rivers, caves, spacious bays, headlands, and numberless curiosities, 

 natural and artificial, would alone occupy a volume of description. We proceed, 

 therefore, to offer a few words on the subject of the engraving. 



Cape Wrath, the " Parph" of ancient geographers, is a remarkably bold head- 

 land, forming the marked and angular north-west extremity of Great Britain. 

 It is, consequently, one of the extreme points of our island, and on that account, 

 like John o' Groat's, or the Land's End, is much visited by strangers. Its 

 stupendous granitic front its extensive and splendid ocean scenery and the 

 peculiarly wild character of the country by which it is approached, invest Cape 

 Wrath with an interest to which few, if any, other promontories on the British 



* The THANES of Sutherland first received the title of earls from Malcolm Canmore, king of Scotland, 

 A.D. 1031. The duchess-countess is the twenty- third representative of this family, and a lineal descendant 

 of ROBERT BKUCE the third William, earl of Sutherland, baring been married to the princess Margaret, 

 daughter of that monarch. On the visit of King George IV. to Edinburgh, in August 1822, it was deter- 

 mined by His Majesty that the right of carrying the Scottish sceptre lay with this noble family; and Lord 

 Francis Leveson Gower was permitted to act as deputy for his mother, the duchess-countess, in that 

 honourable office. See our sketch of the ceremony in the first vol. of this work, art. " King's Visit to 

 Edinburgh." 



t A clergyman from Orkney had brought his son, a fine intelligent boy, with him on a visit to some 

 friends in the south. They had travelled during the night ; and when the scenery of Golspie, seen on a 

 bright summer's morning, burst on the view, the boy, who had hitherto been a total stranger to woods and 

 trees, and familiar only with the bare rocks and ocean of his native landscape, seemed perfectly entranced 

 with astonishment and delimit. HP ran about, wondering at all he saw ; eagerly exploring every leaf and 

 flower, as if entering on possession of a new world of enjoyment. Inverness Courier. Statist. Anderson. 



