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182 RAMBLES NOETHWAEB.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
We Will Take At Random Some Fifty People...
of the arch , these primitive structures yet remain to tell of a people lost in the lapse of agesconcerning- whom the wisest _savatis can Imt
, offer vague suggestions , or invent plausible probabilities . From the commanding situations in which they are found , and
the long * chains of them which can be traced through the country , generallin the vicinity of the coastthe most feasible
interpretation is th y at which attributes their erection , by the then _occuj ) iers of the land as a defence against the incursions of the Danes aad
other Northmen who are known from time to time to have invaded the country . " Were excavations more generally practised and
these encouraged interesting , some 1 memorials further li of ght a peop might le , all probabl trace y of be whose thrown existence upon
has seemingly vanished from the earth . At the head of Loch Shin , in the immediate vicinity of Lairg ' , are various remains of these
Pictish towers , so thickly congregated round a tower of superior s ancient ize , that peop they le cannot were constructed but suggest on the the ide same a that princi the p villages les of buildin of thes g e ,
in the neighbourhood of one large tower or fortress , whither the inhabitants retreated upon the approach of an enemy .
At Golspie , tlie traveller will find a most excellent inn , and , as we have saidthe means of posting comfortably over whatever route
he may be pursuing , -. The mail-coach also runs daily from Inverness to Golspievia Tain and Dornoch , arid from Golspie , over the _Ord
, of Caithness , to Wick and Thurso , the furthest limit of stage-coach travelling , the stage-coach being thenceforth replaced by
mailcarts . Those who desire to visit John-o-Groat's house must pursue the
coach road to Wick , whence it is a day's excursion , but , let them be prepared to find no traces of the good man ' s habitation . Tradition
says that a small Dutch colony established itself here , at whose head we may suppose a certain Johannes to have been , and that the natives ,
growing jealous of the success which attended the settlement , surprised and massacred them to a man . The visitor will have pointed
but to him . a small green mound as the exact site of John-o-Groat'shouse , and if he be gifted with an observant eye he will see that he
is surrounded Ly barrows , one or two of which have been opened , but no human remains have been found .
Little or nothing is known about John-o-Groat ' s house , but we prefer giving the tradition preserved amongst those living on the
spot to repeating the oft-told tale of the guide books . Caithnessshire is one of the richest agricultural counties in the north of
Scotland , and the Sutherlandshire sheep-farmer avails himself of its superiority in this respect over his own county to send his large
flocks thither for winter food . The route we ourselves selected left Caithness on the right . The
chief object we had in view being to see Sutherlandshire , we leffc the mail-road for Wick at Plelmsdale , _ahxl strixck up through the
Strath * of . the same name into Strath Halladale , which , as a glance
* Strath , a wide valley _.
182 Rambles Noethwaeb.
182 RAMBLES NOETHWAEB .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Nov. 1, 1859, page 182, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01111859/page/38/
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