30 TOUR IN SUT.HERLANDSHIRE. 



the road passes over a wild and dreary hill-side, at a consider- 

 able height above the valley below us. Here for some miles 

 we were exposed to the coldest and most driving and wettest 

 mist that ever disgraced a May day. Nothing could be seen 

 twenty yards from the road excepting the drifting clouds. 

 Luckily the wind was behind us, as it would have been 

 almost impossible to have faced it. It cleared off again, how- 

 ever ; and before we reached Durness the night was as calm 

 and bright as the morning had been. We did not arrive at 

 Durness till eleven at night, and then we found no one up ; 

 indeed \ve had great difficulty in finding the inn, as there 

 was nothing to distinguish it from any other house in the 

 scattered village, excepting it was considerably larger than 

 its neighbours. After some time, however, we did find one 

 person awake, and got comfortably housed in this very 

 excellent inn. 



Nothing can exceed the sea view from Durness, as you 

 look along the varied line of abrupt rocks to the cliff called 

 " Far-out Head," which is very nearly, if not quite, as 

 northerly a point as Cape Wrath. 



Having passed the end of Loch Erriboll, and having pro- 

 cured a feed of corn for our horse from Mr. Clark (the tenant 

 of the sheep farm here), we worked a zigzag course up the 

 largest and steepest hill we had to contend with throughout 

 our whole journey. Then descending, we passed the face of 

 a hill, cut and intersected by numberless small streams of 

 the most pure and transparent water that I ever saw, which 

 take their rise from the limestone rocks above. 



Loch Erriboll is one the numerous creeks reaching into 

 the mainland from the North Sea, and often serving for a 

 refuge to shipping, which otherwise must inevitably 3 perish 

 in every violent north and north-east wind on this iron- 

 bound coast. On our way from this loch we passed the 

 head of a fine fresh-water lake, Loch Hope, and up a 

 magnificent glen called Glenmore (I believe), the sides of 

 which, woody and precipitous, abound in the wilder ferae, 

 iiaturce of the island. Wild and marten cats live here in 

 peace, and we frequently saw eagles sailing about the higher 

 cliH's, and sometimes perched on some pinnacle of rock. We 

 found out by chance a very perfect echo, repeating every 

 word, and even sentence, with the greatest exactness and 

 passing from one side of the valley to the other, till the 

 sounds died away in an indistinct murmur. 



