We had walked twenty-seven miles, and it must have been weather such as we had experienced that inspired the poet to exclaim: 

  The west wind blows and brings rough weather,
  The east brings cold and wet together,
  The south wind blows and brings much rain,
  The north wind blows it back again!

The beds were placed end to end, so that our feet came together, with a wooden fixture between the two beds to act as the dividing line.  Needless to say we slept soundly, giving orders to be wakened early in the morning.

(Distance walked twenty-seven miles.)

Saturday, September 23rd.

We were awakened at six o’clock in the morning, and after a good breakfast we left the Half-Way House (later the “Aultnamain Inn"), and well pleased we were with the way the landlady had catered for our hungry requirements.  We could see the sea in the distance, and as we resumed our march across the moors we were often alarmed suddenly by the harsh and disagreeable cries of the startled grouse as they rose hurriedly from the sides of our path, sounding almost exactly like “Go back!—­go back!” We were, however, obliged to “Go forward,” and that fairly quickly, as we were already a few miles behind our contemplated average of twenty-five miles per day.  We determined to make the loss good, and if possible to secure a slight margin to our credit, so we set out intending to reach Inverness that night if possible.  In spite, therefore, of the orders given in such loud and unpleasant tones by the grouse, we advanced quickly onwards and left those birds to rejoice the heart of any sportsman who might follow.

Cromarty Firth was clearly visible as we left the moors, and we could distinguish what we thought was Cromarty itself, with its whitewashed houses, celebrated as the birthplace of the great geologist, Hugh Miller, of whom we had heard so much in the Orkneys.  The original cause of the whitewashing of the houses in Cromarty was said to have been the result of an offer made by a former candidate for Parliamentary honours, who offered to whitewash any of the houses.  As nearly all the free and independent electors accepted his offer, it was said that Cromarty came out of the Election of 1826 cleaner than any other place in Scotland, notwithstanding the fact that it happened in an age when parliamentarian representation generally went to the highest bidder.

We crossed the Strathrory River, and leaving the hills to our right found ourselves in quite a different kind of country, a veritable land of woods, where immense plantations of fir-trees covered the hills as far as the eye could reach, sufficient, apparently, to make up for the deficiency in Caithness and Sutherland in that respect, for we were now in the county of Ross and Cromarty.