CROMARTY. 7 



Cromarty was a more important place seventy years 

 ago than it is now, but its dimensions never exceeded 

 those of a considerable village. It is one of several 

 miniature towns which stud the shores of the Maolbuie 

 or Black Isle, a peninsular block of land, washed on the 

 north by the frith of Cromarty, on the south by the frith 

 of Beauly, and abutting on the German Ocean in a green 

 headland, fringed with pine, known to mariners as the 

 Southern Sutor of Cromarty. On the landward side of 

 this headland nestles the little town. The Maolbuie, 

 stretching westward, rises from encircling sea, occasion- 

 ally in abrupt crags, generally in gradual undulation. 

 Here and there, along the watercourses and in the hol- 

 lows, are glimpses of green field and leafy wood, but the 

 general impression is that of a huge swell of brown 

 moorland, over-blown by sea-winds, traversed by chill 

 fogs, and constituting, on the whole, one of the most 

 bleak and ungenial districts in Scotland. The natives of 

 Cromarty have always been a hardy, long-lived race. 

 The climate, though salubrious, is severe. The town is 

 exposed at all seasons to high gales from the North Sea, 

 laden with mist or sleet, and even at midsummer keen 

 blasts from the Atlantic make their way through the 

 western hill-gorges, send the spray of the frith whistling 

 through the air, and pierce to every nook and cranny of 

 the shivering town. But there are fertile spots in its 

 immediate neighbourhood, and in sheltered nooks the 

 elm and poplar flourish ; the air, except when darkened 

 by sea-fog, is clear and bracing; a chain of hills, run- 

 ning along the frith on the north, leads the eye to 

 the heights of Ben Wyvis sleeping in the pearl-blue of 

 distance ; there are brooks rippling through wooded 

 dells, and caves hollowed in the rock ; and at all times, 

 and from almost every point of view, there is a gleam- 



