THE ORD OF CAITHNESS 35 



by the tail of the one before him. Yet traffic was car- 

 ried on throughout England in the same manner, about 

 three hundred years ago. 



Caithness was behind in everything. The only geo- 

 graphy of the county was known from Danish sources. 

 Timothy Pont made his first map in 1608. It was shut 

 out from the rest of Scotland by the mountainous county 

 of Sutherland.* It was long before a road could be 

 made to enable the people to communicate with their 

 countrymen farther south. The only road lay along the 

 eastern shore, among rocks and sand, which were often 

 covered by the tide. The inland road lay over the Ord 

 of Caithness. The Ord is a formidable pass between 

 Sutherland and Caithness. It is situated at the eastern 

 boundary of the two counties. There is a lofty mountain 

 on one side of the road, and a steep precipice on the 

 other, at the foot of which is the sea. 



The Ord is the termination of a long mountain ridge, 

 and is the brow of a steep hill overhanging the ocean. On 

 the Sutherland side, the headland is cleft into a gorge of 

 great depth, which runs a long way inland. The old 

 road before the present bridge was built over the gorge 

 was a mere path or shelf along the outer edge of the 

 promontory twelve hundred feet above the sea. When 



* It may seem strange to us that the extreme north-western corner 

 of Great Britain should be called Sutherland. No inhabitants of Scot- 

 land could have bestowed so inappropriate a name. It was evidently 

 given by a people living still farther to the , north. Sutherland, in 

 short, is the mainland to the south of the Orkney Jarldom. Here, as 

 well as in Caithness, we find numerous Norwegian names. The barren 

 uplands were left to the Gael. TAYLOB, Words and Places. 



