London to John O* Groat's. 391 



ferry boat, and at noon reached Dornoch, the capital 

 of Sutherlandshire. This was one of the fourteen 

 cities of Scotland; and its little, chubby cathedral, 

 and the tower of the old bishop's palace still give 

 it a kind of Canterbury air. The Earls of Sutherland 

 for many generations lie interred within the walls 

 of this ancient church. After stopping here for an 

 hour or two for dinner, I continued on to Golspie, 

 the residence of the mighty lord of the manor, or 

 the owner, master and human disposer of this great 

 mountain county of Scotland. It is stated that full 

 four-fifths of it belong to him who now holds the 

 title, and that his other great estates, added to this 

 teritory, make him the largest landowner in Great 

 Britain and probably in Europe. Just before reaching 

 Grolspie, a lofty, sombre mountain, with its bald head 

 enveloped in the mist, and which I had been two hours 

 apparently in passing, cleared away and revealed its 

 full stature and more. Towering up from its top- 

 most summit, a tall column lifted a human figure in 

 bronze skyward cloud-high and frequently higher still. 

 I believe the brazen face that thus looks into the pure 

 and holy skies without blushing is a duplicate of the one 

 worn in human flesh by His Grace, E victor I., who un- 

 peopled his great county of many thousands of human 

 inhabitants, and made nearly its whole area of 18,000 



