wherein several rooms he showed us some of his paintings, which were really excellent considering they were executed in ordinary wall paint.  His mother informed us that he began to study drawing when he was ill with a slow fever, but not bed-fast.  Two of the pictures, that of an old bachelor and a Scotch lassie, a servant, were very good indeed.  We also saw a picture of an old woman, a local celebrity, about a hundred years old, which was considered to be an excellent likeness, and showed the old lady’s eyes so sunk in her head as to be scarcely visible.  We considered that we had here found one of Nature’s artists, who would probably have made a name for himself if given the advantages so many have who lack the ability, for he certainly possessed both the imaginative faculty and no small degree of dexterity in execution.  He pointed out to us the house of a farmer over the way who slept in the Parish of Wick and took his meals in that of Canisbay, the boundary being marked by a chimney in the centre of the roof.  He also informed us that his brother accompanied Elihu Burritt, the American blacksmith, for some distance when he walked from London to John o’Groat’s.

We were now about eleven miles from Wick, and as Mr. Nicolson told us of an old castle we had missed, we turned back across the moors for about a mile and a half to view it.  He warned us that we might see a man belonging to the neighbourhood who was partly insane, and who, roaming amongst the castle ruins, usually ran straight towards any strangers as if to do them injury; but if we met him we must not be afraid, as he was perfectly harmless.  We had no desire to meet a madman, and luckily, although we kept a sharp look-out, we did not see him.  We found the ruined castle resting on a rock overlooking the sea with the rolling waves dashing on its base below; it was connected with the mainland by a very narrow strip broken through in one place, and formerly crossed by a drawbridge.  As this was no longer available, it was somewhat difficult to scale the embankment opposite; still we scrambled up and passed triumphantly through the archway into the ruins, not meeting with that resistance we fancied we should have done in the days of its daring owner.  A portion only of the tower remained, as the other part had fallen about two years before our visit.  The castle, so tradition stated, had been built about the year 1100 by one Buchollie, a famous pirate, who owned also another castle somewhere in the Orkneys.  How men could carry on such an unholy occupation amidst such dangerous surroundings was a mystery to us.

[Illustration:  MR. NICOLSON’S HOME, SHOWING THE ARCH OF WHALE’S JAW.]

On our return we again saw our friend Mr. Nicolson, who told us there were quite a number of castles in Caithness, as well as Pictish forts and Druidical circles, a large proportion of the castles lying along the coast we were traversing.  He gave us the names of some of them, and told us that they materially enhanced the beauty of this rock-bound coast.  He also described to us a point of the coast near Ackergill, which we should pass, where the rocks formed a remarkably perfect profile of the Great Duke of Wellington, though others spoke of it as a black giant.  It could only be seen from the sea, but was marvellously correct and life-like, and of gigantic proportions.