208 VIEW FROM BEN SHURERY. CHA*. xiv. 



mysterious the whole becomes ! How much are we still 

 in the dark ! However, thank heaven, the FISH were, 

 before the mountains of Shurery, Braalnabin, or Dorery 

 had any existence ! Were I to tell some people this, 

 they would not believe me." 



" The view from the mountain top," he adds, " is very 

 grand. And though the wind blew rather cold for one 

 bathed in sweat, I tried to look abroad. To the north 

 the Orkneys and all the intervening lands lay tabled 

 before me. Turning round to the south-east, Morveii 

 towered aloft, wreathed in snow. From the little loch 

 underneath me, stretched a low wide country covered 

 with brown heather and dotted with lochs." 



Another of Dick's rambles was an extraordinary one. 

 He walked from Thurso to Strath Halladale in Suther- 

 landshire, then up the dale and round to Thurso by the 

 Dorery Hills, a night's walk of more than sixty miles. 

 Here is his own account : 



"I left Thurso," he says, "at eight o'clock in the 

 evening ; went on to Eeay ; from Reay to Portskerra ; 

 then ten miles up the deep Strath Halladale ; then to 

 Eumsdale; then turned down to Loch Shurery; then 

 over the top of Dorery mountain, down on Braalnabin ; 

 rounded the loch of Calder, and along the public road 

 to Thurso again, a delightful amount of labour cer- 

 tainly. 



" I travelled all night alone, simply to test the fact 

 of the sea finding its way over Caithness, and covering 

 the lands towards the sea. 



" At midnight, twenty minutes to one, I was standing 



