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From John O'Groats to Land's End by Robert Naylor and John Naylor

R >> Robert Naylor and John Naylor >> From John O\'Groats to Land\'s End




[Illustration: A NORTH SEA ROLLER.]

There were some rather amusing stories about the detention of ships in
the Firth. A Newcastle shipowner had despatched two ships from that port
by the same tide, one to Bombay by the open sea, and the other, via the
Pentland Firth, to Liverpool, and the Bombay vessel arrived at her
destination first. Many vessels trying to force a passage through the
Firth have been known to drift idly about hither and thither for months
before they could get out again, and some ships that once entered
Stromness Bay on New Year's Day were found there, resting from their
labours on the fifteenth day of April following, "after wandering about
like the _Flying Dutchman_." Sir Walter Scott said this was formerly a
ship laden with precious metals, but a horrible murder was committed on
board. A plague broke out amongst the crew, and no port would allow the
vessel to enter for fear of contagion, and so she still wanders about
the sea with her phantom crew, never to rest, but doomed to be tossed
about for ever. She is now a spectral ship, and hovers about the Cape of
Good Hope as an omen of bad luck to mariners who are so unfortunate as
to see her.

The dangerous places at each end of the Firth were likened to the Scylla
and Charybdis between Italy and Sicily, where, in avoiding one mariners
were often wrecked by the other; but the dangers in the Firth were from
the "Merry Men of Mey," a dangerous expanse of sea, where the water was
always boiling like a witch's cauldron at one end, and the dreaded
"Swalchie Whirlpool" at the other. This was very dangerous for small
boats, as they could sail over it safely in one state of the tide, but
when it began to move it carried the boat round so slowly that the
occupants did not realise their danger until too late, when they found
themselves going round quicker and quicker as they descended into the
awful vortex below, where the ancient Vikings firmly believed the
submarine mill existed which ground the salt that supplied the ocean.

We ought not to have read these dismal stories just before retiring to
rest, as the consequence was that we were dreaming of dangerous rocks,
storms, and shipwrecks all through the night, and my brother had toiled
up the hill at the back of the town and found Bessie Miller there, just
as Sir Walter Scott described her, with "a clay-coloured kerchief folded
round her head to match the colour of her corpse-like complexion." He
was just handing her a sixpence to pay for a favourable wind, when
everything was suddenly scattered by a loud knock at the door, followed
by the voice of our hostess informing us that it was five o'clock and
that the boat was "awa' oot" at six.

We were delighted to find that in place of the great storm pictured in
our excited imagination there was every prospect of a fine day, and that
a good "fish breakfast" served in Mrs. Spence's best style was waiting
for us below stairs.


_Thursday, September 14th._

After bidding Mrs. Spence farewell, and thanking her for her kind
attention to us during our visit to Stromness, we made our way to the
sloop, which seemed a frail-looking craft to cross the stormy waters of
the Pentland Firth. We did not, of course, forget our large basket which
we had had so much difficulty in finding, and which excited so much
attention and attracted so much curiosity towards ourselves all the way
to John o' Groat's. It even caused the skipper to take a friendly
interest in us, for after our explanation he stored that ancient basket
amongst his more valuable cargo.

There was only a small number of passengers, but in spite of the early
hour quite a little crowd of people had assembled to witness our
departure, and a considerable amount of banter was going on between
those on board the sloop and the company ashore, which continued as we
moved away, each party trying to get the better of the other. As a
finale, one of our passengers shouted to his friend who had come to see
him off: "Do you want to buy a cow?" "Yes," yelled his friend, "but I
see nothing but a calf." A general roar of laughter followed this
repartee, as we all thought the Orkneyman on shore had scored. We should
have liked to have fired another shot, but by the time the laughter had
subsided we were out of range. We did not expect to be on the way more
than three or four hours, as the distance was only about twenty-four
miles; but we did not reach Thurso until late in the afternoon, and we
should have been later if we had had a less skilful skipper. In the
first place we had an unfavourable wind, which prevented our sailing by
the Hoy Sound, the shortest and orthodox route, and this caused us to
miss the proper sea view of the "Old Man of Hoy," which the steamboat
from Stromness to Thurso always passed in close proximity, but we could
perceive it in the distance as an insular Pillar of Rock, standing 450
feet high with rocks in vicinity rising 1,000 feet, although we could
not see the arch beneath, which gives it the appearance of standing on
two legs, and hence the name given to the rock by the sailors. The
Orcadean poet writes:

See Hoy's Old Man whose summit bare
Pierces the dark blue fields of air;
Based in the sea, his fearful form
Glooms like the spirit of the storm.

[Illustration: "OLD MAN OF HOY."]

When pointing out the Old Man to us, the captain said that he stood in
the roughest bit of sea round the British coast, and the words "wind and
weather permitting" were very applicable when stoppages wore
contemplated at the Old Man or other places in these stormy seas.

We had therefore to sail by way of Lang Hope, which we supposed was a
longer route, and we were astonished at the way our captain handled his
boat; but when we reached what we thought was Lang Hope, he informed the
passengers that he intended to anchor here for some time, and those who
wished could be ferried ashore. We had decided to remain on the boat,
but when the captain said there was an inn there where refreshments
could be obtained, my brother declared that he felt quite hungry, and
insisted upon our having a second breakfast. We were therefore rowed
ashore, and were ushered into the parlour of the inn as if we were the
lords of the manor and sole owners, and were very hospitably received
and entertained. The inn was appropriately named the "Ship," and the
treatment we received was such as made us wish we were making a longer
stay, but time and tide wait for no man.

For the next inn he spurs amain,
In haste alights, and scuds away--
But time and tide for no man stay.

[Illustration: THE SHIP INN, LANG HOPE. The sign has now been removed to
a new hotel, visible in the photograph, on the opposite side of the
ferry.]

Whether it was for time or tide or for one of those mysterious movements
in the Pentland Firth that our one-masted boat was waiting we never
knew. We had only just finished our breakfast when a messenger appeared
to summon us to rejoin the sloop, which had to tack considerably before
we reached what the skipper described as the Scrabster Roads. A stiff
breeze had now sprung up, and there was a strong current in the sea; at
each turn or tack our boat appeared to be sailing on her side, and we
were apprehensive that she might be blown over into the sea. We watched
the operations carefully and anxiously, and it soon became evident that
what our skipper did not know about the navigation of these stormy seas
was not worth knowing. We stood quite near him (and the mast) the whole
of the time, and he pointed out every interesting landmark as it came in
sight. He seemed to be taking advantage of the shelter afforded by the
islands, as occasionally we came quite near their rocky shores, and at
one point he showed us a small hole in the rock which was only a few
feet above the sea; he told us it formed the entrance to a cave in
which he had often played when, as a boy, he lived on that island.

[Illustration: DUNNET HEAD AND LIGHTHOUSE.]

The time had now arrived to cross the Pentland Firth and to sail round
Dunnet Head to reach Thurso. Fortunately the day was fine, and the
strong breeze was nothing in the shape of a storm; but in spite of these
favourable conditions we got a tossing, and no mistake! Our little ship
was knocked about like a cork on the waters, which were absolutely
boiling and foaming and furiously raging without any perceptible cause,
and as if a gale were blowing on them two ways at once. The appearance
of the foaming mass of waters was terrible to behold; we could hear them
roaring and see them struggling together just below us; the deck of the
sloop was only a few feet above them, and it appeared as if we might be
swallowed up at any moment. The captain told us that this turmoil was
caused by the meeting of the waters of two seas, and that at times it
was very dangerous to small boats.

Many years ago he was passing through the Firth with his boat on a
rather stormy day, when he noticed he was being followed by another boat
belonging to a neighbour of his. He could see it distinctly from time to
time, and he was sure that it could not be more than 200 yards away,
when he suddenly missed it. He watched anxiously for some time, but it
failed to reappear, nor was the boat or its crew ever seen or heard of
again, and it was supposed to have been carried down by a whirlpool!

We were never more thankful than when we got safely across those awful
waters and the great waves we encountered off Dunnet Head, and when we
were safely landed near Thurso we did not forget the skipper, but bade
him a friendly and, to him, lucrative farewell.


We had some distance to walk before reaching the town where, loaded with
our luggage and carrying the large basket between us, each taking hold
of one of the well-worn handles, we attracted considerable attention,
and almost every one we saw showed a disposition to see what we were
carrying in our hamper; but when they discovered it was empty, their
curiosity was turned into another channel, and they must see where we
were taking it; so by the time we reached the house recommended by our
skipper for good lodgings we had a considerable following of "lookers
on." Fortunately, however, no one attempted to add to our burden by
placing anything in the empty basket or we should have been tempted to
carry it bottom upwards like an inmate of one of the asylums in
Lancashire. A new addition was being built in the grounds, and some of
the lunatics were assisting in the building operations, when the foreman
discovered one of them pushing his wheelbarrow with the bottom upwards
and called out to him, "Why don't you wheel it the right way up?"

"I did," said the lunatic solemnly, "but they put bricks in it!"

We felt that some explanation was due to our landlady, who smiled when
she saw the comical nature of that part of our luggage and the motley
group who had followed us, and as we unfolded its history and described
the dearth of willows in the Orkneys, the price we had paid, the
difficulties in finding the hamper, and the care we had taken of it when
crossing the stormy seas, we could see her smile gradually expanding
into a laugh that she could retain no longer when she told us we could
have got a better and a cheaper basket than that in the "toon," meaning
Thurso, of course. It was some time before we recovered ourselves,
laughter being contagious, and we could hear roars of it at the rear of
the house as our antiquated basket was being stored there.

After tea we crossed the river which, like the town, is named Thurso,
the word, we were informed, meaning Thor's House. Thor, the god of
thunder, was the second greatest of the Scandinavian deities, while his
father, Odin, the god of war, was the first. We had some difficulty in
crossing the river, as we had to pass over it by no less than
eighty-five stepping-stones, several of which were slightly submerged.
Here we came in sight of Thurso Castle, the residence of the Sinclair
family, one of whom, Sir John Sinclair, was the talented author of the
famous _Statistical Account of Scotland_, and a little farther on stood
Harold's Tower. This tower was erected by John Sinclair over the tomb of
Earl Harold, the possessor at one time of one half of Orkney, Shetland,
and Caithness, who fell in battle against his own namesake, Earl Harold
the Wicked, in 1190. In the opposite direction was Scrabster and its
castle, the scene of the horrible murder of John, Earl of Caithness, in
the twelfth century, "whose tongue was cut from his throat and whose
eyes were put out." We did not go there, but went into the town, and
there witnessed the departure of the stage, or mail coach, which was
just setting out on its journey of eighty miles, for railways had not
yet made their appearance in Caithness, the most northerly county in
Scotland. We then went to buy another hamper, and got a much better one
for less money than we paid at Stromness, for we had agreed that we
would send home two hampers filled with shells instead of one. We also
inquired the best way of getting to John o' Groat's, and were informed
that the Wick coach would take us the first six miles, and then we
should have to walk the remaining fifteen. We were now only one day's
journey to the end and also from the beginning of our journey, and, as
may easily be imagined, we were anxiously looking forward to the morrow.


_Friday, September 15th._

At eight o'clock in the morning we were comfortably seated in the coach
which was bound for Wick, with our luggage and the two hampers safely
secured on the roof above, and after a ride of about six miles we were
left, with our belongings, at the side of the highway where the by-road
leading in the direction of John o' Groat's branched off to the left
across the open country. The object of our walk had become known to our
fellow-passengers, and they all wished us a pleasant journey as the
coach moved slowly away. Two other men who had friends in the coach also
alighted at the same place, and we joined them in waving adieux, which
were acknowledged from the coach, as long as it remained in sight. They
also very kindly assisted us to carry our luggage as far as they were
going on our way, and then they helped us to scheme how best to carry it
ourselves. We had brought some strong cord with us from Thurso, and with
the aid of this they contrived to sling the hampers over our shoulders,
leaving us free to carry the remainder of our luggage in the usual way,
and then, bidding us a friendly farewell, left us to continue on our
lonely way towards John o' Groat's. We must have presented an
extraordinary appearance with these large baskets extending behind our
backs, and we created great curiosity and some amusement amongst the
men, women, and children who were hard at work harvesting in the country
through which we passed.

My brother said it reminded him of Christian in John Bunyan's _Pilgrim's
Progress_, who carried the burden on his back and wanted to get rid of
it; while I thought of Sinbad the Sailor, who, when wrecked on a desert
island, was compelled to carry the Old Man of the Sea on his shoulders,
and he also wanted to get rid of his burden; but we agreed that, like
both of these worthy characters, we should be obliged to carry our
burdens to the end of the journey.

We had a fine view of Dunnet Head, which is said to be the Cape Orcas
mentioned by Diodorus Siculus, the geographer who lived in the time of
Julius Caesar, and of the lighthouse which had been built on the top of
it in 1832, standing quite near the edge of the cliff.

The light from the lantern, which was 346 feet above the highest spring
tide, could be seen at a distance of 23 miles; but even this was
sometimes obscured by the heavy storms from the west when the enormous
billows from the Atlantic dashed against the rugged face of the cliff
and threw up the spray as high as the lights of the building itself, so
that the stones they contained have been known to break the glass in the
building; such, indeed, was the prodigious combined force of the wind
and sea upon the headland, that the very rock seemed to tremble as if it
were affected by an earthquake.

While on the coach we had passed the hamlets of Murkle and Castlehill.
Between these two places was a sandy pool on the seashore to which a
curious legend was attached. The story goes that--

a young lad on one occasion discovered a mermaid bathing and by some
means or other got into conversation with her and rendered himself so
agreeable that a regular meeting at the same spot took place between
them. This continued for some time. The young man grew exceedingly
wealthy, and no one could tell how he became possessed of such
riches. He began to cut a dash amongst the lasses, making them
presents of strings of diamonds of vast value, the gifts of the fair
sea nymph. By and by he began to forget the day of his appointment;
and when he did come to see her, money and jewels were his constant
request. The mermaid lectured him pretty sharply on his love of gold,
and, exasperated at his perfidy in bestowing her presents on his
earthly fair ones, enticed him one evening rather farther than usual,
and at length showed him a beautiful boat, in which she said she
would convey him to a cave in Darwick Head, where she had all the
wealth of all the ships that ever were lost in the Pentland Firth and
on the sands of Dunnet. He hesitated at first, but the love of gold
prevailed, and off they set to the cave in question. And here, says
the legend, he is confined with a chain of gold, sufficiently long to
admit of his walking at times on a small piece of sand under the
western side of the Head; and here, too, the fair siren laves herself
in the tiny waves on fine summer evenings, but no consideration will
induce her to loose his fetters of gold, or trust him one hour out of
her sight.

We walked on at a good pace and in high spirits, but, after having
knocked about for nine days and four nights and having travelled seven
or eight hundred miles by land and sea, the weight of our extra burden
began to tell upon us, and we felt rather tired and longed for a rest
both for mind and body in some quiet spot over the week's end,
especially as we had decided to begin our long walk on the Monday
morning.

Visions of a good hotel which we felt sure we should find at John o'
Groat's began to haunt us, and the more hungry we became the brighter
were our anticipations of the good fare that awaited us. But judge of
our surprise and disappointment when a man whom we met on the road told
us there was no hotel there at all! We asked if he thought we could get
lodgings at John o' Groat's House itself, but the sardonic grin that
spread over his features when he told us that that house had vanished
long ago was cruel. The information gave us quite a shock, and our
spirits seemed to fall below zero as we turned our backs on the man
without even thanking him for answering our questions. We felt not too
full, but too empty for words, as we were awfully hungry, and I heard my
brother murmur something that sounded very like "Liar"; but the man's
information turned out to be perfectly correct. Our luggage also began
to feel heavier, and the country gradually became more wild and
desolate. Our spirits revived a little when a fisherman told us of a
small inn that we should reach a mile or two before coming to John o'
Groat's. We thought we had surely come to the end of everywhere when we
reached the "Huna Inn," for it stood some distance from any other house
and at the extreme end of an old lane that terminated at the sea. It was
a small, primitive structure, but it was now our only hope, as far as we
knew, for obtaining lodgings, and we could scarcely restrain our delight
when we were told we could be accommodated there until Monday morning.
It was an intense relief to us to be separated from our cumbersome
luggage, and we must say that Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie did all in their
power to make us comfortable and happy and to make us feel at home. We
contented ourselves with some light refreshments which to some
non-pedestrians might have appeared decidedly heavy, and then decided to
see all that remained of John o' Groat's House.

Walking along the beach for about a mile and a half, the distance we
were told that separated the ruins from the inn, we failed to find them,
and were about to return when we met a shepherd who said we had already
passed them. We therefore returned with him, as he told us he was going
to the inn, and he showed us a few mounds of earth covered with grass
which marked the site of the foundations of John o' Groat's House, but
the stones had been removed to build a storehouse, or granary, at a
place he pointed out in the distance. We were rather disappointed, as we
expected to find some extensive remains, and, seeing they were so very
scanty, we wondered why, in a land where stones were so plentiful, some
monument or inscribed stone had not been erected to mark the site where
this remarkable house once stood, as, in the absence of some one to
direct them, strangers, like ourselves, might pass and repass these
remains without noticing them. We were not long in reaching the inn, for
the shepherd was a big man and took very 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.

I went in a boat
To see John o' Groat,
The place where his home doth lie;
But when I got there,
The hill was all bare,
And the devil a stone saw I.

The following entry also appeared in the Album:--

Elihu Burrit of New Britain, Connecticut, U.S. America, on a walk
from Land's End to John o' Groat's, arrived at Huna Inn, upon Monday
Sep. 28th, 1863. He visited the site of that famous domicile so
celebrated in the world-wide legend for its ingenious construction to
promote domestic happiness, and fully realised all he had anticipated
in standing on a spot so rich with historical associations and
surrounded with such grand and beautiful scenery. He desires also to
record his testimony to the hospitality and comfort of the cosy
little sea-side Inn, where he was pleasantly housed for the night,
and of which he will ever cherish an interesting remembrance.

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