Dunrobin Castle, the grand residence of the Duke of Sutherland, looks off upon the sea at Golspie.  It is truly a magnificent edifice, ranking with the first palaces in Christendom.  Nearly eight hundred years has it been in building, though, I believe, all that commands admiration for stature and style is the work of the present century.  Whatever the Sutherland family may have been in local position and history in past centuries, one of the noblest women that ever ennobled the nobility of Great Britain, has given the name a celebrity and an estimation in America which all who ever wore it before never won for it.  The Duchess of Sutherland, the noble and large-hearted sister of Lord Morpeth-Carlisle, has given to the coronet she wore a lustre brighter to the American eye than the light of diadems which have dazzled millions in Europe.  When the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Men shall come to its high place in the hearts of nations as the crown-faith of all their creeds, what this noble woman felt, said and did for the Slave in his bonds shall be mentioned of her by the preachers of that great doctrine in years to come.  When the jewels of Humanity’s memories shall be made up, she who, as it were, bent down to him in his prison-house and put her jewelled hands to the breaking of his fetters, shall stand, with women of the same sympathy, only next to her who broke her box of ointment on the Saviour’s feet.

The next day made a walk to Helmsdale, a distance of about eighteen miles.  The weather was favorable, the scenery grand and varied with almost every feature that could give it interest.  The finest of roads wound in and out around the mountain headlands, so that alternately I was walking upon a lofty esplanade overlooking the still expanse of the steel-blue sea, then facing inward to the gorges of the grand and solemn hills.  Found comfortable quarters in one of the inns of Helmsdale, a vigorous, busy, fishing village nestling under the shadow of the mountains at the mouth of a little river of the same name.  After tea, went down to the wharf or quay and had some conversation with one of the masters of the business.  He cured and put up about 30,000 barrels of herrings himself in a season, employing, while it lasted, 500 persons.  Their chief market is the North of Europe, especially Poland, and the business was consequently much depressed on account of the troubles in that country.  The occupation of this little sea-side village illustrated the ramifications of commerce.  They imported their salt from Liverpool, their staves from Norway and their hoops from London.