long strides, and here we wrote a few short letters to our friends to advise them of our safe arrival at John o’ Groat’s, afterwards walking to the post office about a mile away to post them, and ordering a high tea to be ready for us on our return.  It was half-past eight when we finished our tea, after which we were conducted to a little room close to the sea, with two tiny windows in it, one of them without a blind, and with a peat or turf fire burning brightly on the hearth.  Mrs. Mackenzie then brought us a small candle, which she lighted, and handed us a book which she said was the “Album,” and we amused ourselves with looking over this for the remainder of the evening.  It was quite a large volume, dating from the year 1839, and the following official account of the Groat family, headed with a facsimile of the “Groat Arms,” was pasted inside the cover: 

   THE CHIEF OF THE RACE OF JOHN O’ GROAT IS ALEXANDER G. GROAT, ESQ.,
   ADVOCATE, EDINBURGH.

   NOTICES OF JOHN O’ GROAT’S HOUSE.

It is stated in Sinclair’s Statistical Accounts of Scotland, vol. 8, page 167 and following:—­“In the account of Cannisby by the Rev. John Marison, D.D., that in the reign of James the Fourth, King of Scotland, Malcom, Cairn and John de Groat, supposed to have been brothers and originally from Holland, arrived in Caithness from the south of Scotland, bringing with them a letter in Latin by that King recommending him to the countenance and protection of his loving subjects in the County of Caithness.”

It is stated in Chambers’s Pictures of Scotland, vol. 2, page 306, “that the foundations or ruins of John o’ Groat’s House, which is perhaps the most celebrated in the whole world, are still to be seen.”

Then followed the names and addresses of visitors extending over a period of thirty-three years, many of them having also written remarks in prose, poetry, or doggerel rhyme, so we found plenty of food for thought and some amusement before we got even half way through the volume.  Some of these effusions might be described as of more than ordinary merit, and the remainder as good, bad, and indifferent.  Those written in foreign languages—­and there were many of them—­we could neither read nor understand, but they gave us the impression that the fame of John o’ Groat’s had spread throughout the civilised world.  There were many references to Stroma, or the Island of the Current, which we could see in the Pentland Firth about four miles distant, and to the difficulties and danger the visitors had experienced in crossing that “stormy bit of sea” between it and John o’ Groat’s.  But their chief complaint was that, after travelling so far, there was no house for them to see.  They had evidently, like ourselves, expected to find a substantial structure, and the farther they had travelled the greater their disappointment would naturally be.  One visitor had expressed his disappointment in a verse more forcible than elegant, but true as regarded the stone.