406 A Walk from 



the Republic. The sewing-machine is in all the 

 towns and villages on the island. If there is not an- 

 American clock at John O'Groat's, I hope some of my 

 fellow-townsmen will send one there, Bristol-built. 

 They are pleasant tokens of free-labor genius. No 

 land tilled by slaves could produce them. I saw 

 many large and highly-cultivated farms on these 

 last miles of my walk. The country was propor- 

 tionately divided between food and fuel. Oats and 

 barley constitute the grain-crops. The uncultivated 

 land interspersed with the yellow fields of harvest 

 is reserved for peat the poor man's fuel and his 

 wealth. For were it not for the inexhaustible 

 abundance of this cheap and accessible firing, he 

 could hardly inhabit this region. It would seem 

 strange to an American, who had not realised the 

 difference of the two climates, to see fields full of 

 reapers on the very threshold of October, as I saw 

 them on this last day's walk. I counted twelve 

 women and two men in one field plying the sickle, 

 all strongly-built and good-looking and well dressed 

 withal. 



The sea was as still and blue as a lake. A lark 

 was soaring and warbling over it with as happy 

 and hopeful a voice as if it were singing over the 

 greenest acres of an English meadow. When I had 



