CHAP. vni. DUNNET LIGHTHOUSE. 85 



Head is a wick or bay, in which ships find safe shelter 

 an old retreat of the Vikingers. 



Eough Head is a bold headland. Numerous boulders 

 are strewn at the bottom of the cliff. There are points 

 near Dwarwick Head and Rough Head, where an 

 approach to the sands is possible, though, in some places, 

 it is rather precipitous. There are numerous gyoes along 

 the headland, worn out into inland caves by the powerful 

 washings of the sea. There is one near Dwarwick which 

 penetrates far inland. When the sea is rough, and drives 

 in from the west, the sea dashes up far inland, and blows 

 through the opening like a whale, throwing abroad sheets 

 of spray. 



The precipices gradually rise. In certain places the 

 rocks seem to have slipped away towards the bottom, and 

 left steep slopes overgrown by ferns. There are numer- 

 ous wild birds among the cliffs. Cormorants are seen 

 winging their solitary way towards the north. Deep 

 caves appear in the face of the rock ; with here and there 

 a recent slip from the summit to the sea, where the 

 stones lie in a rough slope. The red sandstone of the 

 rocks looks so clear, so solid, and so near at hand, that 

 it might be thought they were only a gunshot distant, 

 though they are a mile and a quarter away. 



And now we are under the lighthouse, where the 

 strata are nearly level. The precipice here is some three 

 hundred feet high. The lighthouse is on the crest of 

 the rocks, only about thirty feet from the precipice. It 

 is the highest lighthouse in Scotland. The height of 

 the lantern above the highest spring tides is 346 feet, 



