THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES The RALPH D. REED LIBRARY BWAKTMEOT OF GEOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LO S ANGELES, CALIF. ROBEBT DICK ROBERT DICK BAKER, OF THURSO GEOLOGIST AND BOTANIST BY SAMUEL SMILES, LL.D. AUTHOR OF "LIFE OF A SCOTCH NATURALIST" ' SELF-HELP " "THRIFT" ' ' CHARACTER ' ' ETC. WITH A PORTRAIT AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS 'In Nature's infinite book of secrecy A little I can read." SlIAKESPEARE. 'The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight; But they, wh le their companions slept, Were toiling upwards in the night." LONGFELLOW. NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS FRANKLIN SQUARE BY SAMUEL SMILES. ' ; with Illustrations of Character, Conduct, and Perseverance. A New Edition. 12mo, Cloth, $1 00 ; 4to, Paper, 20 cents. CHARACTER. 12mo, Cloth, $1 00. THRIFT. 12mo, Cloth, $1 00. DUTY ; with Illustrations of Courage, Patience, and Endurance. 12mo, Cloth, $1 00 ; 4to, Paper, 15 cents. HISTORY OF THE HUGUENOTS. The Huguenots: their Settlements, Churches, and Industries in England and Ireland. With an Appendix relating to the Huguenots in America. Crown 8vo, Cloth, $2 00. THE HUGUENOTS AFTER THE REVOCATION. The Hnunenots in France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes: with a Visit to the Country of the Vaudois. Crown 8vo, Cloth, |2 00. LIFE OF THE STEPHENSONS. The Life of George Stephenson, and of his Son Rohert Stephenson ; comprising, also, a History of the Invention and Introduction of the Railway Locomotive. With Portraits and nn- merons Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, $3 00. ROUND THE WORLD; including a Residence in Victoria, and a Jonrney by Rail across North America. By a Boy. Edited by SAMFKI. SMII.KS. With Illustrations. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50. LIFE OF A SCOTCH NATURALIST: Thomas Edward, Associate of the Linnsean Society. With Portrait and Illustrations. 12mo, Cloth, $1 60. ROBERT DICK. Robert Dick, Baker of Thurso ; Geologist and Botanist. With Portrait and Illustrations. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50. JAMES NASMYTH. James Nasmyth, Engineer. An Autobiography. Ed- ited by SAMCBL SMILBS. With Portrait and Illustrations. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50; 4to, Paper, 20 cents. MEN OF INVENTION AND INDUSTRY. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50 ; 4to, Pa- pr, 20 cents. . PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW Top*. gent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. Geology Library PREFACE. THE preparation of this book has occupied me at intervals during several years. It would have been published before the Life of a Scotch Naturalist, but for want of the requisite materials. I have to thank my reviewers, one and all, for their favourable notices of that work. It has, however, been objected that I should have culled my last example of Self-Help from a career not already concluded, and exposed the Scotch Naturalist, after his long unmerited neglect, to the harder trial of intrusive patronage, to which my premature biography was likely to expose him. Whatever truth there may be in this objection, it certainly does not apply in the present case. Robert Dick died twelve years ago, without any recognition of his services to the cause of science, and without any of that Royal Help which, as in the case of Edward, is likely to render the later years of his life more free from care and anxiety. The first account that I heard of Robert Dick was from the lips of the late Sir Roderick Murchison. He 860880 PREFACE. delivered a speech at Leeds on the occasion of the meeting of the British Association, which was held there in September 1858. " In pursuing my researches in the Highlands," said the Baronet, " and going beyond Sutherland into Caithness, it was my gratification a second time to meet with a remarkable man in the town of Thurso, named Robert Dick, a baker by trade. I am proud to call him my distinguished friend. When I went to see him, he spread out before me a map of Caithness and pointed out its imperfections. Mr. Dick had travelled over the whole county in his leisure hours, and was thoroughly acquainted with its features. He delineated to me, by means of some flour which he spread out on his baking board, not only its geographical features, but certain geological phenomena which he desired to impress upon my attention. Here is a man who is earning his daily bread by his hard work ; who is obliged to read and study by night ; and yet who is able to instruct the Director-General of the Geographical Society. " But this is not half of what I have to tell you of Robert Dick. When I became better acquainted with this distinguished man, and was admitted into his sanctum which few were permitted to enter I found there busts of Byron, of Sir Walter Scott, and other great poets. I also found there books, carefully and beautifully bound, which this man had been able to PREFACE. vii purchase out of the savings of his single bakery. I also found that Robert Dick was a profound botanist. I found, to my humiliation, that this baker knew infinitely more of botanical science ay, ten times more than I did ; and that there were only some twenty or thirty British plants that he had not collected. Some he had obtained as presents, some he had purchased, but the greater portion had been accumulated by his own industry in his native county of Caithness. These specimens 'were all arranged in most beautiful order, with their respective names and habitats ; and he is so excellent a botanist that he might well have been a professed ornament of Section D [Zoology and Botany]. I have mentioned these facts," concluded the Baronet, " in order that the audience may deduce a practical application." This notice of Robert Dick, by a man of so much eminence as Sir Roderick Murchison, interested me greatly. His perseverance in the cause of Science, while pursuing the occupations of his daily labour his humility, his modesty, and his love of nature were things well worthy of being commemorated. But I was at that time unable to follow up my inquiries. I could merely mention him in Self-Help, which was published in the following year, as an instance of cheerful, horest working, and of energetic effort to make the most of small means and ordinary opportunities. PREFACE. Many years passed. Robert Dick died in 1866, Was it possible that he had left any memoranda on which a memoir of his life and labours could be written ? On inquiry I found that many of his letters were still in existence. I believe that I have been successful in obtaining the greater part of them, or, at all events, those which are the most interesting. In fact, by means of these letters the story of Dick's life has in a great measure been told by himself. One of his principal correspondents was the late Hugh Miller, author of My Schools and Schoolmasters, The Old Red Sandstone, and other geological works. His son, Mr. Hugh Miller, of the Geological Survey, has kindly sent me Dick's letters to his father; though Hugh Miller's letters to Dick have not yet reached me. They are supposed to be in Australia. Mr. Charles W. Peach, A.L.S., one of Dick's best friends, has sent me all Dick's letters to him, together with much other valuable information as to his life and character. But perhaps the best of Dick's letters those containing his references to his private life were those written to his sister, principally for her amusement ; and these have been kindly placed in my hands by Dick's brother-in-law, Mr. Falconer of Haddington. I am also indebted to Dr. Meiklejohn, to Dr. Bobcrt Brown, F.L.S., for many letters; and to the PREFACE. Rev. William Miller, A.M., Thurso, for the letters sent by Dick to his uncle, the late Mr. John Miller, F.G.S. Among those who have also favoured me with \ aluable information as to Dick's life, I have to mention Mr. Brims, Procurator- Fiscal, Thurso; Mr. G. M. Sutherland and Mr. Fielding, Wick ; Professor Shearer, Airedale College, Bradford ; and Dr. George Shearer, Liverpool. With respect to the Illustrations, they have, for the most part, been the result of several journeys which I have made round the coast of Caithness, and also into the inland districts frequented by Robert Dick, while making his numerous journeys in search of fossils, boulder clay, ferns, plants, and grasses. The illustrations have been much improved by being drawn on the wood by such accomplished artists as Leitch, Skelton, and Boot, and engraved by Cooper, Whymper, and Paterson. Mr. Sheriff Russell of Wick and Mr. Charles Peach of Edinburgh have also given me their assistance in the preparation of the illustrations. The engraving of Mr. Peach has been executed by Charles Roberts, after a photograph by Mr. Dallas, Edinburgh. LONDON, NOVEMBER 1878. CONTENTS. CHAPTER L T0LLIBODY. The village of Tullibody Windings of the Forth and Devon Scenery of the Devon The Ochils Castle Campbell Rift in the Ochill Menstrie Bencleuch The Picts The " Standing-Stane" Cambuskenneth The French at Tullibody The Abercromby family ....... Pages 1-7 CHAPTER II. ROBERT DICK'S BOYHOOD. Robert Dick's birthplace His mother The children sent to school Teacher of the Barony School Robert Dick an apt scholar His talent for languages Resides at Dam's Burn Schoolmaster at Menstrie Climbs the Ochils Life at home His stepmother Family difficulties What Dick learnt as a boy He leaves home ....... Pages 8-16 CHAPTER III. ROBERT DICK APPRENTICED. Apprenticed to a baker Life of a baker's boy His early and late hours Delivering the bread His observations of Nature First acquaintance with Botany Remembrance of the plants of the Devon His sister Agnes His day of rest A great reader Mr. Dick removes to Thurso Robert Dick leaves Tullibody A journey- man baker at Leith, Glasgow, and Greenock Removes to Thurso Begins business in Thurso Thurso Bay His delight in the sea The sea-bird's cry ..... Pages 17-2* CHAPTER IV. DESCRIPTION OF CAITHNESS. rhe name "Caithness" Nesses along the coast Caithness Scaudl> navian Wicks in Caithness Saetrs, Dahls, Thorsa The people - xii CONTENTS. Firths or fiords The Picts drowned Currents in the Pentland Firth Stroma Pentland Skerries The furious winds in Caith- ness No trees or hedges Barrogill Castle The coast scenery Wick Bay Duncansby Head The Stacks John o' Groats The old castles Al-wick, Keiss, Girnigo The Gyoes The inland country The Caithness mountains The great mountain, Morven Agriculture The old Caithness plough Thurso Roads Crab- bans Ord of Caithness Sir John Sinclair Thurso Castle Road over Bencheilt Sir John Sinclair's improvements . Pages 26-39 CHAPTER V. DICK BEGINS BUSINESS. Wilson Lane, Thurso First flour bought Studies conchology Botany His father leaves for Haddington Dunnet Head, Hoi- born Head, and the Clett The Gyoes The inland country- Entomology Beetles, Bees, Butterflies, and Moths The boya follow Dick Makes friends of the boys Rare insects brought to him Astronomy, Geology, Phrenology Dick invited to marry Annie Mackay Mechanical method for making biscuits His biscuits . ... Pages 40-49 CHAPTER VI. BOTANICAL WANDERINGS. * His entomological collection Tested everything by observation His books Books imbedded in his flour His microscope Hogarth's works A great reader Botanical excursions Spring in the North Watching the growth of the flowers The ferns Caithness flora Study of Botany Midsummer time Solitude The moors The soaking rain Walking for a fern Standing on a hill-top Letters to his sister Walking over a moor Journey to Morven top Dift taken for a salmon-poacher . . . Pages 50-69 CHAPTER VII. DISCOVERS THE "HOLY GRASS." Business and science Want of friends His dress His love of nature A deputation from the boys Dick a general referee His know- ledge of plants The Hierochloe borealis Retains the discovery for twenty years Dick's paper on the subject The Royal Botani- cal Society, Edinburgh The Moonwort The Stork's-bill Pursuit of ferns Dunnet Sands The Dorery Hills Loch Shurery Dick's fernery at the Reay Hills .... Pages 70-80 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. DUNNET HEAD. The coast scenery near Thurso Holborn Head The rockbound coast The Gyoes Fury of the waves Scrabster Roads New rocks laid bare Dunnet Head a favourite haunt Height of the cliffs Extent of the peninsula Dwarwick Head Yachting trip round Dnnnet Head The gyoe near Dwarwick The sea-birds The lighthouse Slips of the rocks Dick's journey to Dunnet Head Dunnet sands Over the heather Down the cliffs Search for ferns Overtaken by the sea Dick found by a pleasure party Geology of Dunnet Head Devoid of organisms The sandstone cliffs Sandstone from shore to shore Rocks at Brough Dunnet Loch A superstition of Caithness . . . Pages 81-97 CHAPTER IX. GEOLOGY DISCOVERT OP A HOLOPTYCHIUS. Studies Geology Mantell and Buckland Hugh Miller's Old Red Sandstone Addresses Hugh Miller The Holoptychius Describes the beginning of his studies Hugh Miller's account of Dick Gentlemen-geologists The scalding theory Dick sends his fossils to Hugh Miller Hugh Miller's acknowledgments . Pages 98-109 CHAPTER X. GEOLOGY OF THE THURSO COAST. I Invitations to Hugh Miller Description of the coast Thurso East Fossiliferous beds "That man is mad" View from the coast Pudding Gyoe Murkle Bay View of Dunnet cliffs Geologising at Scrabster The sea The Coccosteus An old burying-ground Bishop's Palace Scrabster Roads Holborn Head The Deil's Brig The Clett Slater's monument Brims Searching for fossils on Holborn Head Pages 110-128 CHAPTER XL HUGH MILLER VISITS DICK. Dick's observations in geology Opposed to theorising Dip of tha strata How came the fossil fish ? The flagstones of Caithness- Geological formation of Caithness Elevation and depression of th xiv CONTENTS. land Differences of climate The glaciers The boulder clay- Beds of coal Dick sends his fossil remains to Hugh Miller A bundle of findings Dick publicly mentioned Weydale An auld bachelor Dipteras and Diplopterus The quarrymen and the fossils Banniskirk "Fresh herring" Walking sentry Reconnoitres for Hugh Miller Hugh Miller visits Robert Dick Their walks along the shore Dunnet sands and Dunnet Head Holborn Head Description of Hugh Miller The expatriated Highlanders " Donald's Flittin " . . Pages 129-150 CHAPTER XII. DEATH OF DICK'S FATHER THE BOULDER CLAY. Thomas Dick at Haddington Removes to Tullibody His illness and death Letter to his sister Competition at Thurso His absence from "the Kirk" The reason why Dick's solitary service His collection of fossils Researches into the boulder clay His journeys by daylight and moonlight Boulder clay along the Thurso river Finds marine shells and flints Thurdistoft Belts of clay Harpsdale Sends Hugh Miller the marine shells Pages 151-166 CHAPTER XIII. DICK'S SEARCHINGS AMONGST THE BOULDER CLAY. A journey to Freswick Starts at midnight Castle of Freswick Wanderings up the burn Finds marine shells Hugh Miller's conclusions The eastern side of Dunnet Head Dick's walk under the break-neck rocks Cliffs at Brough Goes into a boulder clay ravine Proceeds down a ledge Wonder upon wonder Dick's reflections Journey to Harpsdale Another visit to Freswick Boulder stones Village of Castletown Wild bulls of Dunnet Moss of Mey The Skerry Lights Stroma Isle The Wart Hill- Wades along Freswick Burn Searches amongst the boulder clay All the country once occupied by the sea Dick's conclusions 7-191 CHAPTER XIV. ICEBERG PERIOD. Action of icebergs Journey to Dunbeath Crosses Caithness from north to south Granitic debris Dunbeath Water Finds marine shells Granite and conglomerate The boulders The moors I/>ch More The auld carle The want of sneeshin Deceived by CONTENTS. the anld carle Formation of Caithness Journey to Acharynio Picturesque appi-antnce of the river Dirlot Castle Dallmore and Cattack Strathbeg Journey to Sinclair Bay Noss Head Various other journeys Visit to Shurery View from the Ben Walk up Strath Halladale Journey along the Pentland Firth The Haven of Mey The Caddis worm . . . Pages 192-213 CHAPTER XV. END OF CORRESPONDENCE WITH HUGH MILLER. Dick's assistance to Hugh Miller Professor Agassiz's testimony Professor Sedgwick Specimen of the Diplopterus Professor Owen Hugh Miller's acknowledgments Ruling by authorities Geo- logical maps Dick's travelling map Government should make the maps One first creation Winter in Caithness Groovings of ice Rolling home an Asterolepis How Dick polished his fossils Working among the rocks, at Barrogill, Mull of Mey, Scarskerry The base at Gill's Bay Scotland Haven Ramble to Bencheilt The Dniid's Temple Stemster Loch Bed over bed Hugh Miller's works Popes of all sorts Hugh Miller's death Dick's story of "Tb Fairies" Dick's lamentations over Hugh's death Pages 214-237 CHAPTER XVI. CHARLES W. PEACH, A.L.S. Another worker among the rocks in Cornwall Charles Peach How working men may advance knowledge Peach and Dick Peach born at Wansford His schooling Assists in his father's inn Is appointed riding officer in the Coastguard service Studies Natural History His frequent removals in Norfolk The Rev. J. Layton Superintendent at Cley Removed to Lyme Regis, Beer, Paignton, aiid Gorranhaven Studies Zoology The Geology of the Cornish coast Reads a paper at the British Association Constant, attender at the meetings The meeting at York Dr. R. Chambers' descrip- tion Discovery of the Holothuria nigra Charles Peach promoted to Landing Waiter at Fowey His discovery of organic fossils Testimony of the Royal Cornish Geological Society Removes to Peterhead Continues his studies in Zoology and Botany Removes to Wick His first visit to Robert Dick His second visit to Dick Their walks Battles in Dick's bakehouse Peach dis- covers fossils in the limestone of Durness Effects a revolution in Geology ...... Pages 238-258 xvi CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVII. EGBERT DICK AND CHARLES PEACH. Peach finds a new fossil Dick's reply The monk of Cambray reading backwards Views of Geology Ill-will to geologists Mr. Peach's paper at Liverpool Fossil wood Dick's botanical collection Mr. W. L. Notcutt Dick's correspondents His Sunday walks Dr. Macleod " Ta tail pe brak "Encounter with a Highlander- Sir Roderick Murchison Calls on Robert Dick Letter from Sir Roderick Second visit to Dick Moulds a map of Caithness in flour Sir Roderick's letter Voyage of Murchison and Peach to the Shetland Islands Sir Roderick's speech at Leeds " Hammers an' chisels an' a' "Amygdaloid Dick's rhymes Another letter from Sir Roderick Another rhyme . . . Pages 259-281 CHAPTER XVIII. LION-HUNTERS FERNS AND MOSSES. rai hurso people and Dick Opinions about his rhymes Lion-hunters Annie Mackay The Duke of Argyll Sir George Sinclair Thomas Carlyle and Baroness Burdett Coutts Lady Sinclair "Welcome Charlie" Medical students Dr. Shearer Dr. Meiklejohn Dr. Brown The Juncus squarrosiis Study of mosses Club mosses Finds the Osmil/nda regalis Ferns on Dunnet Head Cornish heaths Studies from Nature Fossil wood Illness Hart's-tongue fern Section of Caithness strata Plants the Royal Fern over Caithness Darwin's Journal The littleness of things Dr. Shearer's question Correspondence with Dr. Meiklejohn Influence of climate on roses ..... Pages 282-311 CHAPTER XIX. ROBERT DICK IN ADVERSITY. Dick's attention to business Is oppressed by competition Loses his money Loses his health Thinks of removing from Thurso More bakers Bakers and whisky dealers John Barleycorn No coddling and nursing Improvement of Thurso Annie Mackay's conversa- tion, Dick's housekeeper Dick's honesty His cheerfulness- Keeps moving Pores over dried mosses Jacob's son Eyesight becomes defective His struggles to live SirWyville Thomson His description of Dick Dick resumes his researches among the fossils His great labour Finds an extraordinary fossil . Pages 312-328 CONTENTS. xvii CHAPTER XX. DICK COMPELLED TO SELL HIS FOSSILS. The ' ' Prince Consort " shipwrecked Dick's flour lost Unable ta pay the loss Appeals to his sister Obtains 20 from her Pre- pares to sell his fossils Mr. John Miller, F.G.S. Correspondence with him Writes to Sir Roderick Murchison Sells his fossils to Mr. Miller Pays his bill for the lost flour His business again falls off Nature comes to his relief His lonely walks His favourite resorts The Daisy The Bulrush and Lapland Reed Troubled with rheumatism Native roses Professor Babington Professor Owen Mr. Notcutt Mr. Pringle, Farmer 's Gazette "0 waft me o'er the deep blue sea" Dick a sleepless man St. Peter's burying-ground A believer in the unseen world . Pages 329-347 CHAPTER XXI. RECOMMENCES A COLLECTION OP FOSSILS. Again searches for fossil fish His wondrous astonishment The dead fish Platform of death View of Caithness and Orkney Death a necessity Interview with a quarryman Hugh Miller's views referred to The Old Red conglomerate Searchiugs among the rocks A large fossil found Searches for an entire fossil fish Hia constant diggings Mr. Salter's lecture Digs in hard frost Order of succession Bed of rolled pebbles on Morven top Stony clays on Thurso river Metamorphic action Liquid silica Flint casts The chalk formation Dick's letters . . Pages 348-37'J CHAPTER XXII. DICK'S FRIENDS FOSSILISING AND MOSS-HUNTING. How the Thurso people regarded Dick His antediluvian garments His appearance His inner thinkings The little we really know Dignity and purity of Dick's character Dr. Shearer's statement as to his thoroughness Peach and Dick Careful and abstemious " No pampering " Correspondence with his sister Ferns in De- cember, Peri Dick nearly shot Death of his sister A new friend His meeting with Dick His frequent interviews Dick's museum described His herbarium Walls of his bakehouse His interest CONTENTS. in Egypt Natural History Society of Thurso A museum More correspondents Mr. Jamieson, Ellou Lines to Charles Peach Award to Peach for his discoveries in geology Peach finds new fossils A sea-suake Pterichthys Dicki Peach's duties Retires from the service Continues the study of geology and zoology Dick's letter on receiving his photograph . . . Pages 371-394 CHAPTER XXIII. DICK'S LAST YEAR HIS DEATH. Dick afflicted by rheumatism Competition in business His trade sus- pended His biscuits Scarcely earns the wages of a day-labourer / A good new year Collecting mosses and ferns Reform The rain Working at fossils again The old days gone for ever A boulder stone from Helmsdale Bishop Colenso's book The Thurso merchants Mr. Carlyle's o\"ation Railway projects Dick pictures himself Dick's last walk His description His illness Mr. Miller's helpfulness Continues to work His last letters Mrs. Harold Robert Dick's death A public funeral Followers to his grave Winding up of his affairs Sale of his library The proposed pension Too late Pages 395-416 CHAPTER XXIV. CHARACTERISTICS. Dick self-sacrificing life TJnhappiness in his bringing up His delight in nature His love of facts The mystery of geology Its wonders His researches among the rocks and boulder clay His unselfish- ness His givings to Hugh Miller Hugh Miller's acknowledgments His extraordinary journeys Necessity for work His intellectual labour His modesty His enthusiasm His closeness of observa- tion His idea of geology His collections of fossils His herbarium His character His childlikeness Sir George Sinclair's testimony Profeseor Shearer Charles Peach His poverty Annie Mackay Dick a reverent and devout man Moral of Dick's life Pages 417-432 ILLUSTBATIONS. POETRAIT OF ROBERT DICK. Etched by Paul Rajon. Frontispiex. Engraved by PORTRAIT 01 CHARLES W. PEACH, A.L.S. C. JRoberts. Tofcuxpage 238 BENCLEDOH OCHIL HILLS , 1 RIFT IN THE OCHILS, NEAR MENSTRiE .... page 3 ROBERT DICK'S BIRTHPLACE, TULLIBODY 8 DAM'S BURN, FOOT OF THE OCHILS 11 DUNMYAT, FROM CAMBUSKENNETH , . ,,17 THDRSO BAY . 26 MAP OF CAITHNESS To face page 26 GIRNIGO CASTLE, EAST COAST OF CAITHNESS . . . page 32 ORD OF CAITHNESS ,,36 DUNCANSBY HEAD, NEAR JOHN o' GROAT'S ... ,,39 THE CLETT, HOLBORN HEAD To face page 44 OLD THURSO CASTLE, FROM THE SHORE .... page 54 MORVEN MOUNTAIN To face page 66 THE DORERY HILLS . .... page 79 DWARWICK HEAD 84 DUNNET HEAD, FROM THE EAST .... To face page 86 DISTANT VIEW OF DONNET HEAD, FROM BARROGILL CASTLE page 97 MAP OF COAST NEAR THURSO ,,110 HOY HEAD AND MAN OF HOY 115 BISHOP'S PALACE AND SCRABSTER ROADS ... 121 THE DEIL'S BRIO, HOLBORN HEAD . . . To face page 111 DUNNET SANDS . page 143 ROCKS AT HOLBORN HEAD SLATER'S MONUMENT To face page 146 THURSO RIVER, FROM THE BRIDGE page 160 STACKS OF DUNCANSBY . . . . . . . ,,166 FRESWICK CASTLE AND HEADLAND ... 169 xx LIST OF ILLUSTRA TIONS. DUNNET CLIFFS, EASTERN SIDE page 172 ROCKS AT BROUGH To face page 17 4 CASTLEHILL HOUSE, CASTLETOWN page 180 THE SKERBY LIGHTS, PENTLAND FIRTH : FROM CANISBAY To face page, 182 BOULDER CLAY AT FRESWICK page 184 FRESWICK BRIDGE 186 DUNBEATH : EAST COAST OF CAITHNESS . . . ,,193 RUINS OF DlRLOT pASTLE . .... 202 SINCLAIR BAY AND Noss HEAD ,,205 STRATH HALLADALE To face page 208 MOUTH OF STRATH HALLADALE RIVER .... page 210 DUNNET HEAD : WEST FRONT NEAR THE LIGHTHOUSE To face page 232 WANSFORD, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE page 24C CHARLES PEACH'S HOUSE AT FOWEY .... 249 ROBERT DICK'S HOUSE, WILSON'S LANE, THURSO . . 271 THURSO HARBOUR : THE OLD CHURCH . . . . ,, -74 OLD THURSO CASTLE ,,286 DUNNET HEAD : WEST FRONT .... To face page 296 DICK'S SEAT AT DORERY : VIEW INTO SUTHERLANDSHIRE page 303 THURSO PARISH CHURCH, FROM THE WICK ROAD . . ,,317 RUINS OF ST. PETER'S, THURSO ,,347 DISTANT VIEW OF MORVEN AND MAIDEN PAP . . 350 MOUTH OF THURSO RIVER ,,384 MILLATFORSS To face page 388 MONUMENT TO ROBERT DICK IN THUESO CEVETEB.Y 416 NKW THURSO CASTLE ....... page 432 BENCLEUGH : OCHIL HILLS. ROBERT DICK. CHAPTEE I. TULLIBODY. THE village of Tullibody stands upon a rising ground situated between the windings of the Forth and the Devon, in Clackmannanshire, Scotland. The Devon takes its rise among the burns and rivulets which flow down from the Ochil Hills. At the upper part of the river, some of the most romantic scenery in Scotland is to be found. At the Caldron Linn the Devon forms a series of cascades, which rush down through precipitous rocks into almost unseen depths. Boiling about in the Caldrons, it passes with a violent noise under the Eumblin' Brig, which spans the rocks about a hundred and twenty feet above the bed of the river. Another affluent of the Devon comes down from the Ochils at Castle Campbell Castle of Gloom, as it used to be called a ruined building occupying a wild and romantic situation on the summit of a high and almost insulated rock. The mount on which it is situated is nearly encompassed on all sides by tliick bosky woods ; and the mountain rivulets which tumble down through THE DEVON. the chasms on either side, become united at the base. The whole of the scenes about the upper Devon are of the most romantic kind, and are strikingly different from all other Scottish scenery. As the river winds out from its rocky bed below the Caldron Linn, it enters the beautiful open valley which runs along the foot of the Ochils, taking on its way the rivulets which flow down from the mountains. It runs westward near Dollar, Tillicoultry, Alva, and Menstrie ; then, winding sharp round towards the south near Tulli- body, it joins the Forth at Cambus, a little below the ruins of Cambuskenneth Abbey. Among his many beautiful verses descriptive of the rivers of Scotland, Burns has not forgotten the Devon : " How pleasant the banks of the clear winding Devon, With green spreading bushes and flowers blooming fair !" The verses werer composed as a poetic compliment to Miss Charlotte Hamilton, a charming lady, then residing at Harvieston, near Dollar.* The lofty range of the Ochils is a prominent feature in the scenery of the Devon. The hills are soft, green, and pastoral. Their sunward slopes are here and there varied with magnificent wooded glades, intermingled with copse and whins, which in their golden summer yellow are supremely beautiful. The burns and streamlets come down in cascades through the deep rifts of the hills, and are turned to use in many mills along the valley. * Near Dollar is "Tait's Tomb," the family burial-place of the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose father built Haivieston, and became the possessor of Castle Campbell. THE OCHILS. The most south- erly of the Ochil Hills is Dunmyat, which is famous for the extensive view obtained from its summit. A little to the east of it rises Beucleuch, the highest hill in the range, 2352 feet high. It shoots up into a tall rocky point, called Craigleith, famous in ancient times for the production of fal- cons. In a hollow behind the point, where the sun's rays never extend, the snow lies far into the summer. The people of the neighbourhood give it the name of Lady Alva's Web. The little town of Alva lies close to the A EIFT IN THE OCHILS, NEAR MRNSTRIE. TULLIBODY. foot of Bencleuch. The glens and wooded copsea behind it are full of beauty. The old ballad never- theless assumes the supremacy of Menstrie, near the foot of Dunmyat : " Oh, Alva's woods are bonnie, Tillicoultry's hills are fair, But when I think o' the bonnie braes o' Menstrie, It makes my heart aye sair." * The village of Tullibody looks down upon the "bonnie braes o' Menstrie." A valley lies between, along which runs the clear winding Devon. A bridge spans the river near Tullibody, from which a fine view is obtained of the winding Devon, the hill of Bencleuch. and the village and woods of Alva at its base. In thie neighbourhood the famous adventure of James the Fifth and the Gudeman of Ballangeich occurred. On the Gudeman's visit to Stirling, the King designated him as " King of the Muirs." The cottage in which King James took shelter lay on an eminence near Tullibody, about a mile south of the Ochils. Tullibody seems in some way to have been connected with that mythical people the Picts.-f Who were the Picts or Pechs ? Many have tried to unravel the story, but the result has been mere guesswork. Som } say that * Menstrie House was formerly the seat of the Earl of Stirling. It was destroyed by the Parliamentarian army during the reign of Charles I. ; in return for which the clans under Montrose devoted Castle Campbell to flames and ruin in 1645. t The name of Tullibody is said to be derived from the Celtic language Tulach, a little green eminence, and Boidich,a,vovf, a solemn promise. Hence Tulachboidich, the knoll of the oath. THE STANDING STANE. they occupied the Orkneys, Caithness, and Sutherland ; others that they inhabited Mid-Scotland, between the West Highlands and the Lowlands north of the Forth. We hear of them at Brechin, at Galloway, and along the Picts' Wall. Some say they were Celts, others Scandi- navians. The riddle is as yet quite unsolved. The story goes that the Picts were totally defeated by King Kenneth in the neighbourhood of Tullibody, or Dunbodenum,* in the year 843, after five successive battles. It is said that the final overthrow of the Picts took place near the village of Logic, close under Dunmyat; and others that it took place at Cambus- kenneth Abbey, which " was built by David the Second on the very spot where his royal ancestor gave the final blow to the Pictish dominion." In commemoration of the event it is said that a " Standing Stane " was first erected at Tullibody, a usual method of distinguishing the site of a battle in ancient times. The "Standing Stane" was, however, demolished about fifty years ago, the broken fragments being found useful in mending the roads. The Abbot of Cambuskenneth took Tullibody under his charge, whether in connection with the victory of Kenneth Macalpine over the Picts, or because the place was in his immediate vicinity, does not appear. At all events, a primitive place of worship was erected at Tullibody, which long continued to be an appendage to the wealthy Abbey of Cambuskenneth. * From Dun Buddran, the fort of Buddran, a celebrated Celtic thief. 2 TULLIBODY BRIDGE. At the period of the Eeformation in Scotland, when the French troops under Mary of Guise were flying westward through Fife and Clackmannan on the arrival of the English fleet in the Forth, William Kirkaldy of Grange, to impede their progress, destroyed the eastern arch of Tullibody bridge. The French, under General D'Oysel, never at a loss in an emergency, unroofed the church at Tullibody for the purpose of repairing the bridge. To use the words of John Knox : " Ye French, expert enough in sic feats, tuke downe ye roofe of a paroch kirk, and made ane brig over ye water called Devon, and sae they escapet and gaed to Stirling, and thereafter to Leath."* For a long time nothing was done to repair the church, after the French had unroofed it. The ancient walls fell to decay, and became covered with wild weeds. The body of the church was used as a burial-place. The place might have gone to utter ruin but for the Aber- cromby family, who own the estate of Tullibody. They * John Knox adds "As ye Frenohe spullyed ye cuntry in their returning, ane captane or soldiour, we cannot tell, but he had a reid clocke and a gilt murrion, entered upon a pure woman, that dwelt in ye Quhytsyid, and began to spoille. Ye pure woman offer-it unto him sic breid as sche had redy prepairit, but he, in no ways tharewith content, wold have ye meil and a littill salt beef, quhilk ye pure woman had to sustein hir own lyif, and ye lyves of hir pure childrein ; nowther could teirs nor pitifull words mitigate ye merciles man, bot he wold have quhatsoevir he micht cary. The pure woman perceaving him so bent, and that he stoupit down in hir tub for the taking furth of sick stuff as was within it, first coupit up his heilles, so that his heid went down, and thairafter be hirsetf, or if ony uther companie came to helpf, hir, but there he enc/it his unhape fyif." THE ABERCROMBIES. roofed over the church, and seated it as a place of worship. They erected some fine monuments and memo- rials in and about it to the memory of the distinguished men of the family. Among them is a cenotaph to the distinguished Sir Ealph Ahercromby, the hero of Aboukir. Having thus described the scenery of the Ochils and the Devon, amongst which Robert Dick spent many of his early days, we proceed to relate the story of his hie. ROBERT DICK'S BIRTHPLACE. CHAPTER II. ROBERT DICK'S BOYHOOD. ROBERT DICK was "born at Tullibody in January 1811.* He "was one of four children Agnes, Robert, Jane, and James. Thomas Dick, his father, was an officer of excise. He was an attentive, diligent, and able man. He eventually rose to one of the highest positions in his calling. At the time when Robert Dick was born, * Miss Dick, his half-sister, says he was born in 1810, though 1811 is on his tombstone. CH\P. ii. BARONY SCHOOL, TULLIBODY. 9 it was his business to attend daily at the Cambua Brewery, close at hand. Margaret Gilchrist was Robert Dick's mother. Very little is known of her, excepting that she was a very delicate woman, and died shortly after having given birth to her fourth child. Thomas Dick was thus left without a wife, and his children without a mother. The house in which the Dick family lived, and in which Robert was born, is situated in the principal street of the village. It is a two-storied, red-tiled, " self-contained" house. Looking down the street from the Tron Tree, you see the Ochil hills forming the back-ground of the village ; the Devon winding in the valley below. The children, as they grew up, were sent to school. Tullibody was fortunate in its Barony School, founded and partly endowed by the Abercromby family. Thus all the children in the village were able to obtain a fair education at a moderate, price ; for in Scotland it is considered a disgrace if a parent, of even the meanest condition, does not send his children to school. Mr. Macintyre was the teacher of the Barony School He was a man of considerable attainments. Above all things, he was an enthusiastic schoolmaster. He main- tained discipline, inculcated instruction, and elevated the position of his school by steady competition. He endeavoured to avoid corporal punishment, and only appealed to it as the last resource. Robert Dick was one of his aptest scholars. He learned everything rapidly. When he had mastered 10 DICK'S DOMINIE. CHAP. n. reading, he read everything he could lay hands on. He was fond of fun and sport, and, like all strong and active boys, he sometimes got into scrapes. When he infringed the rules of the school, the master gave him a number of verses to commit to heart. But he learnt them so quickly and recited them with such ease, that the task was found of no use as a punishment, and then, on any further indiscretion being committed, the master resorted to the last extremity the Taws !* In a letter to Hugh Miller, Dick afterwards said, " My auld dominie used to say that I had a good memory. Every morning, in his introductory exercise, before the business of the day began, he used to pray that teacher and scholars might all be taught, and that discipline might be followed with obedience." Eobert had a great talent for languages. He learnt Latin so quickly that his master recommended Mr. Dick to send him to "college, with the object of educating him for one of the learned professions. Such was his inten- tion, when an event occurred which prevented its being carried into effect. This was Mr. Dick's second marriage. It occurred in 1821, when Eobert was ten years old. Mr. Dick married the daughter of Mr. Knox, the brewer at Cambus, whose premises he inspected. As the excise regulations did not permit of his surveying the premises of a relative, he was removed to Dam's Burn, a hamlet at the foot of the Ochils, where he inspected the whisky distillery of * The Taws, a thick leather strap about three feet long, cut into tails at the end. J>AM'S BUR A?. Mr Dall. The distillery is now called Glen Ochil. Dam's Burn is so called because of a noisy burn, which leaps from rock to rock down the hills, to join the Devon, which runs through the valley below. On its way, the burn used to be dammed up, so as to drive a mill while on its way (~' to the river. Mr. Dick occu- / pied the best house in the place, the slated house, with its gable end towards the street, as shown in the annexed engraving. The slopes of the Ochil hills, the Abbey Craig, on which the Wallace Monument now stands, and the Campsie Fells, beyond Stirling, are seen in the distance. While at Dam's Burn, Eobert Dick went to the parish school at Menstrie, a village about half a mile westward. DAM'S B0KN. 12 DICK ON THE OCHfLS. CHAP. it. The teacher's name was Morrison. He was not equal in accomplishments to the Barony schoolmaster at Tulli- body. He took to teaching because he had not limbs enough to fit him for anything else. He had only one arm. He used to mend his pens dexterously, while holding them firmly under the little stump that remained on the other side. Robert Dick made little progress under this master. He learned his lessons well enough, and read as many books as he could find or borrow. But he had a great compensation at Dam's Burn for his want of school learning. It was at Dam's Burn that he imbibed his love of Nature. The green Ochils rose right behind his father's house. By stepping into the back-green, he could at once ascend the heights. He could ramble up the burns, and in the sheltered corners, behind the rocks, find many precious flowers and plants. The boy who" plays about a mountain side, or among the clefts of the hills, finds many things to amuse him. In spring time there are the birds ; in summer there are the plants and flowers; and in winter there are the icicles hanging down the ledges of the rocks. Robert also found out a variety of stones among the hills, the felspar, porphyry, and greenstones, which are com- mon in the Ochils. He wondered at the difference between them, made a collection of them, which he treasured at a dike-side, behind his father's house, and tried to find out the cause of the difference between one stone and another. This climbing of the Ochils led him into difficulties. DICK'S STEP-MOTHER. 13 And this leads us to a point in the history of Bobert Dick's life which cannot be omitted, inasmuch as it coloured his whole future life. The years of childhood and boyhood are, as it were, a sort of prophetic recital of the years of manhood. They constitute the little stage on which, with puny powers, we unconsciously rehearse the scenes of after life. The boy has in him the seeds of good and the seeds of evil. Which will prove the stronger ? No one can tell. But, to a large extent, it depends upon the effects of love and sympathy at home. The presence of these may call into life the best growths of the soul, and the absence of them may raise up the noxious miasmas that poison the whole human heart. It will be remembered, that when Thomas Dick removed to Dam's Burn, he married again. Other chil- dren were soon added to the household. Then the feelings of the step-mother came into play. It requires great tact and temper to manage a family in which there are two elements, the children of the first mother, and the children of the second. The new Mrs. Dick was a good wife and an excellent mother, so far as her own children were concerned. But she did not get on well with her husband's children by his first wife. Perhaps they regarded her as an intruder in the household ; and where her own children were con- cerned, she naturally regarded them with preference'. Nor were her husband's attentions to his children by his first wife at all to her taste. What was done for them evoked many a pang of maternal jealousy. Mother-lika 14 PERSECUTIONS. human-like, she could not but regard these young things as intruders upon her own children's standing room. All that was given to them was so much taken from her own offspring. Hence arose family difficulties in the household. Eobert stayed out, rather than remain indoors. He wandered about among the hills. He wore out his shoes. To prevent him going out, his step-mother hid them. Still Robert climbed the hills, and came home with bleeding feet. He was punished for his misdoings, and commanded to stay at home. This did not hinder him from going out again. He would wander along the Devon looking for birds' nests. This was as bad as climbing the Ochils, and he was again thrashed with a stick. It was the same with the other step- children. James, the youngest son of the first wife, struck back. Poor fellow! He was pommelled so hard that he could scarcely stand. Was he a "dour," hard, perverse boy? Very likely. He had no mother's affection to bear him up. Eobert Dick never complained. He took his thrashings without grumbling. Still he went on in his old way, though he could not but feel the hol- lowness of his new motherhood. At last the children were got out of the house, Instead of being sent to college (as had been his father's intention), Eobert was sent to Tullibody, where he was apprenticed to a baker. Shortly after, James, the youngest boy, went to sea ; and Agnes, the eldest, went to be a servant at Edinburgh. THE DARK SHADOW. Of course this was a very bad training for an intelli- gent, high-spirited boy. It was not calculated to liber- ate the ideal human being which lies concealed in every child. It was, on the contrary, calculated to sour the boy's nature, and to thwart his temperament at every point. It threw a dark shadow along the whole of his future life. Long afterwards, in speaking to Charles Peach about his early struggles, he said " All my naturally buoyant, youthful spirits were broken. To this day I feel the effects. I cannot shake them off. It is this that still makes me shrink from the world." It will be necessary to bear these facts in mind while reading the story of Robert Dick's after life. There were, however, two or three things that Eobert had already learnt. He was educated, as Scotch boys usually are, at the parish school. He had learnt reading, writing, arithmetic, and a little Latin. It did not amount to much, but it was the beginning of a great deal. The rest of his education he owed to him- self. As Stone, the son of the Duke of Argyll's gardener, said, " One needs only to know the twenty-six letters of the alphabet to be able to learn everything else that one wishes." Another thing that he learnt during this trying period of his life, was self-control. Though treated with capricious restraint, he never retorted. He bore uncom- plainingly all that was laid upon him. Though strong and spirited, he was a good-natured boy. He felt that, under the circumstances, the ill-treatment of his step- 16 LEA VES HOME. mother was a thing that he must bear ; and he bore it uncomplainingly, looking forward to better times. There are compensations in all things. He was happy to leave home. It was a pleasure to him to find that there was some other roof under which he could live in comparative comfort. But he never forgot the circumstances under which he had left home. When he afterwards heard of a neigh- bour losing his wife, he said, "Ah! a sad thing for the bairns ! Had my own mother been alive I would never have been a baker ! " CHAPTEE III. ROBERT DICK APPRENTICED. EGBERT DICK was apprenticed to Mr. Aikman, a baker in Tullibody, when he was thirteen years old. Mr. Aikman had a large business, and supplied bread to people in the neighbouring villages as far as the Bridge of Allan. The life of a baker is by no means interesting. One day is like another. The baker is up in the morning at three or four. The oven fire is kindled first. The 18 LIFE OF A BAKER. CHAP. in. flour is mixed with yeast and salt and water, laboriously kneaded together. The sponge is then set in some warm place. The dough begins to rise. After mingling with more flour, and thorough kneading, the mass is weighed into lumps of the proper size, which are shaped into loaves and "bricks," or into "baps," penny and half- penny. This is the batch, which, after a short time, is placed in the oven until it is properly baked and ready to be taken out. The bread is then sold or delivered to the customers. When delivered out of doors, the bread is placed on a flat baker's basket, and carried on the head from place to place. Eobert Dick got up first and kindled the fire, so as to heat the oven preparatory to the batch being put in. His nephew, Mr. Alexander of Dunferrnline, says " he got up at three in the morning, and worked and drudged until seven and eight, and sometimes nine o'clock at night." - As he grew older, and was strong enough to carry the basket on his head, he was sent about to deliver the bread in the neighbouring villages. He was sent to Menstrie, to Lipney on the Ochils, to Blairlogie at the foot of Dunmyat, and farther westward to the Bridge of Allan, about six miles from Tullibody. The afternoons on which he delivered the bread were a great pleasure to Dick. He had an opportunity for ob- serving nature, which had charms for him in all its moods. When he went up the hills to Lipney, he wandered on his return through Menstrie Glen. He watched the growth of the plants. He knew them individually, one CHAP. in. BEGINNINGS OF BOTANY. 19 from the other. He began to detect the differences between them, though he then knew little about orders, classes, and genera. When the hazel-nuts were ripe he gathered them and brought loads of them home for the enjoyment of his master's bairns. They all had a great love for the 'prentice Kobert. He must also, in course of time, have obtained some special acquaintance with botany. At all events, he inquired, many years after, about some particular plants which he had observed during his residence at Dam's Burn and Tullibody. " Send me," he said to his eldest sister, " a twig with the blossom and some leaves, from the Tron Tree in Tullibody." The Tron Tree is a lime tree standing nearly opposite the house in which Eobert was born. " Send me also," he said, " a specimen of the wild geranium, which you will find on the old road close by the foot of the hills between Menstrie and Alva. I also want a water-plant [describing it] which grows in the river Devon." The two former were sent to him, but the water-plant could not be found. Eobert's apprenticeship lasted for three years and a half. He got no wages only his meals and his bed. He occupied a small room over the bakehouse. His father had still to clothe him, and his washing was done at home. On Saturdays he went with his " duds " to Dam's Burn. But either soap was scarce, or good-will was wanting. His step-mother would not give him clean stockings except once a fortnight. His sister Agnes used to accompany him home to Tullibody in the 20 A GREA T READER. CHAP, m evening, and at the Aikmans' door she exchanged stock- ings with him, promising to have his own well darned and washed by the following Sunday. The day of rest was a day of pleasure to him. He did not care to stay within doors. He had shoes now, and could wander up the hills to the top of Dunmyat or Bencleuch, and see the glorious prospect of the country below ; the windings of the Devon, the wind- ings of the Forth, and the country far away, from the castle of Stirling on the one hand to the castle of Edinburgh on the other. Dick continued to be a great reader. He read every book that he could lay his hands on. Popular books were not so common then as they are now. But he contrived to borrow some volumes of the old Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and this gave him an insight into science. It helped him in his knowledge of botany. He could now find out fo himself the names of the plants ; and he even began to make a collection. It could only have been a small one, for his time was principally occupied by labour. Yet, with a thirst for knowledge, and a deter- mination to obtain it, a great deal may be accomplished in even the humblest station. In 1826, Mr. Dick was advanced to the office of supervisor of excise, and removed to Thurso. Eobert was then left to himself in Tullibody. He had still two years more to serve. One day followed another in the usual round of daily toil. The toil was, however, mingled with pleasure, and he walked through the country with his bread basket, and watched Nature with ever-increasing delight. LEAVES TULLIBODY. 21 He made no acquaintances. The Aikmans say " that he was very kind to his master's children that he was constantly "bringing them flowers from the fields, or nuts from the glens, or anything curious or interesting which he had picked up in the course of his journeys." He occupied a little of his time in bird-stuffing. He stuffed a hare, which he called " a tinkler's lion." It need scarcely be said that the children were very fond of their father's 'prentice. At length his time was out. He was only seventeen. But he had to leave Tullibody, and try to find work as a journeyman. He bundled up his clothes and set out for Alloa, where he caught the boat for Leith. He never saw Tullibody again, though he long remembered it. His father and mother were buried in the churchyard there ; and he could not help having a longing affection for the place. But he could never spare money enough to revisit the place of his birth. Long after, when writing to his brother-in-law, he said, "And ye have been up to Alloa. Well, I do believe that is a bonnie country, altho' I fancy it is not in any sense the poor man's country. Nothing but men of money there; though fient a hair did I care for their grandeur while I lived there. The hills and woods, and freedom to run upon them and through them, was all I cared about. " ' What though, like commoners of air, We wander out we know not where, But either house or hall ? Yet Nature's charms, the hills and woods, The sweeping vales, and foaming floods, Are free alike to all.' 22 DICK A JOURNEYMAN. CHAF. in. I daresay I might pick up a plant or a stone with very different feelings from those I felt in the days of old. But let them go ! There is no use in repining." Again, when writing to a fellow botanist, who doubted whether Digitalis purpurea was a native of Caithness, he said, " I have seen more of the plant in Caithness than I ever saw about Stirling, Alloa, or on the Ochil hills, more than I ever saw in the woods of Tullibody." Eobert Dick found a journeyman's situation at Leith, where he remained for six months. His life there was composed of the usual round of getting up early in the morning, kneading, baking, and going about the streets with his basket on his head, delivering bread to the cus- tomers. It was a lonely life ; and the more lonely, as he was far away from Nature and the hills that he loved. From Leith he went to Glasgow, and afterwards to Greenock. He was a journeyman baker for about three years. His wages were small ; his labour was heavy ; and he did not find that he was making much progress. He continued to correspond with his father, and told him of his position. The father said, " Come to Thurso, and set up a baker's shop here." There were then only three bakers' shops in the whole county of Caithness, one at Thurso, one at Castleton, and another at Wick. In that remote district " baker's bread " had scarcely come into fashion. The people there lived chiefly on oatmeal and bere,* oatmeal porridge and cakes, and * Bere or bar (Norwegian) a commoner kind of barley. " I sing the juice Scotch bear can make us. " BURNS. DICK GOES TO THURSO. barley bannocks, with plenty of milk. Upon this fare men and women grew up strong and healthy. Many of them only got a baker's loaf for " the Sabbath." Eobert Dick took his father's advice. He went almost to the world's end to set up his trade. He arrived at Thurso in the summer of 1830, when he was about twenty years old. A shop was taken in Wilson's Lane, nearly opposite his father's house. An oven had to be added to the premises before the business could be begun; and in the meantime Eobert surveyed the shore along Thurso Bay. Thurso is within sight of Orkney, the Ultima Thule of the Eomans. It is the northernmost town in Great Britain. John o' Groat's the Land's End of Scotland is farther to the east. It consists of only a few green mounds, indicating where John o' Groat's House once stood.* Thurso is situated at the southern end of Thurso Bay, at the mouth of the Thurso river, the most productive salmon river in Scotland. The fish, after feeding and cleaning themselves in the Pentland Firth, make for the fresh water. The first river they come to is the Thurso, up which they swim in droves. Thurso Bay, whether in fair or foul weather, is a grand sight. On the eastern side, the upright cliffs of Dunnet Head run far to the northward, forming the most northerly point of the Scottish mainland. On the * A very comfortable hotel has recently been erected close to the site of John o' Groat's. Many pleasure parties come from Wick and Thurso to spend the day there, and pick up the John o' Groat's buckiea. 24 ASPECTS OF THE SEA. CHAP. HI. west, a high crest of land juts out into the sea, forming at its extremity the bold precipitous rocks of Holborn Head. Looking out of the bay you see the Orkney Islands in the distance, the Old Man of Hoy standing up at its western promontory, At sunset the light glints along the island, showing the bold prominences and depressions in the red sandstone cliffs. Out into the ocean the distant sails of passing ships are seen against the sky, white as a gull's wing. The long swelling waves of the Atlantic come rolling in upon the beach. The noise of their breaking in stormy weather is like thunder. From Thurso they are seen dashing over the Holborn Head, though some two hundred feet high; and the cliffs beyond Dunnet Bay are hid in spray. Eobert Dick was delighted with the sea in all its aspects. The sea opens many a mind. The sea is the most wonderful" thing a child can see; and it long con- tinues to fill the thoughtful mind with astonishment. The sea-shore on the western coast is full of strange sights. There is nothing but sea between Thurso and the coasts of Labrador. The wash of the ocean comes by the Gulf Stream round the western coasts of Scotland, and along the northern coasts of Norway. Hence the bits of drift- wood, the tropical sea-weed, and the tropical nuts, thrown upon the shore at Thurso. In the same way, bits of mahogany are sometimes carried by the ocean current from Honduras or the Baj of Mexico, and thrown upon the shore on the northern THE SEA-MEW'S CRY. 25 most coasts of Norway. One evening, while walking along the beach near Thurso, Eobert Dick took up a singular-looking nut, which he examined. He remarked to the friend who accompanied him, " That has been brought by the ocean current and the prevailing winds all the way from one of the West Indian Islands. How strange that we should find it here !" Kobert Dick always admired the magnmcent sea pictures of Thurso Bay its waves that gently rocked or wildly raged. He enjoyed the salt-laden breath of the sea wind ; and even the cries of the sea birds. Here is his description of the sea-mew : " ' Ha ga tirwa ! ' How strange and uncouth ! How very unnatural the cry seemed. It was only the cry of a sea bird. It was within sight of the ocean. There had been a storm. It was over, but the waves in long rolling breakers dashed themselves in a rage on the sandy shore, and then were quiet. But quiet only for a moment. 'Ha ga tirwa!' Kestless and unwearied, another and another long wave followed and burst into spray. And thus it has ever been 'since evening was, and morning was.' It was then evening, the stars began to twinkle ; and after a little the full moon rose. But still ' Ha ga tirwa !' " But before proceeding with Eobert Dick's history, it is necessary that we should give a short account of the county of Caithness, over the whole of which he afterwards wandered in search of the botany, as well as of the geological formation of the district. THURSO BAV. CHAPTEE IV. CAITHNESS. THE name of Caithness is derived from the old Norse. It indicates the ness, naze, or nose of Cattey.* Many of the headlands are also denominated ness, from Brim's Ness to the west of Thurso, to Noss Head north of Wick. Indeed, the same word is applied to headlands along the east coast of Scotland and England from Tarbat Ness in Eoss to Dungeness in Kent. The same word is applied to the Naze in Norway and in Essex, and to * Caithness, supposed to be the peninsula of the Catti, a tribe cele- brated by Tacitus in his account of the Low German tribes. TACITUS, C. xxx. Germania,oT perhaps from the Ugnan (Lapp) " Ketje "an end or extremity./. Taylor. MAP OF CAITHNESS. CHAP. iv. CAITHNESS SCANDINA VI AN. 27 Cape Gris Nez (Gray Nose) near Calais. It usually in- dicates a headland which the Scandinavians have named, or near which they have settled. Caithness seems to have been almost entirely Scan- dinavian. The creeks or bays in which the Norsemen anchored, or where they ran their boats ashore, are called by Norwegian names, from Wick, the greatest fishing station in the world, to Freswick, Sleswick, D Warwick, and such like inlets. The Gaels seem to have been pushed inland towards the hilly country of Sutherland, while the Scandinavians occupied the low-lying ground along the coast. Almost every farm steading is called by a Scandinavian name. Hence Scrabster, Lybster, Seister, Thurster, Ulbster, and such like the word ster being from " saetr," the Scandi- navian word for farm. Dahls, or dales, penetrate the country to the southward, though the Celtic word Strath is still preserved. Hence Strath Halladale and Strath Helmsdale in Sutherlandshire. North of that region, the rivers are called forss or water. Worsaae derives the name of Thurso from Thor the pagan god, and aa a river. Hence Thorsa, or Thor's river. The people also resemble their progenitors. The fair hair, blue eyes, and tall figures of the Scandinavians are still preserved throughout the county, in contradis- tinction to the small size, the dark hair, the swarthy skin, and the black or steely-blue eyes of the Celts, to the south and west of Scotland. All the firths, or inlets of the sea, are known by Norse names. The Pentland Firth, which runs between the 28 PENTLAND FIRTH. CHAP. iv. north coast of Caithness and the Orkneys, was in old Norse called the Petland Fiord. Here we have the mythical Picts again. Bleau, in his Geographical Atlas, says that the Picts, when defeated by the Scots, fled to Duncansby, from whence they crossed to Orkney. But, meeting with resistance by the natives, they were forced to return. On their way back to Caithness, they all perished in the firth; from which catastrophe it was ever after called the Pictland or Pentland Firth. Heavy currents run through the Firth. The tide runs at the rate of ten miles an hour. A full-rigged ship, with her sails set and a favourable wind, is sometimes driven back by the tide. This I have seen when jour- neying along the shores of the Firth. Sometimes it is whirled round amidst the eddying currents. Where the currents of the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea meet, the water is churned and eddied about as in a maelstrom. At the east end of the Firth is the island of Stroma, which in old Norse means " the island in the current." The population of the island is of pure Norwegian descent ; the men being excellent sailors and boatmen. Not far from this island, and in sight of John o' Groat's, are the two Pentland Skerries, commanding the eastern entrance to the Firth. They were originally called Petland Skjaere. The largest skerry contains two lighthouses, one higher than the other, to be a surer guide to the mariner. During the equinoctial gales, the wind sweeps across the county with great fury. It is scarcely possible to hold one's feet. Cattle are blown down, and trees are CHAP. iv. TREES IN CAITHNESS. 23 blown away. The thatched roofs of the cottages are held down by strong straw ropes with heavy stones hanging at their ends; otherwise the roofs would be blown away, as well as the cottages themselves. It is scarcely possible to grow a tree in the northern part of the county. Hedges are almost unknown. Instead of hedges, the fields are separated from each other by Caithness flags set on end. To one accustomed to the beautiful woods and hedgerows of the south, the cheer- lessness of Caithness scenery may well be imagined. Kobert Chambers said of the county " The appearance of Caithness is frightful, and productive of melancholy feelings." " It is only a great morass," says another writer ; " the climate is unfavourable ; the stormy winds are always blowing across it; mists suddenly come on, and the air is always damp." A desperate effort has been made to grow trees at Barrogill Castle, within sight of the Pentland Firth. A wood surrounds the east side of the castle. The trees .are planted thick, and they are protected by a high wall. But at the point at which the wall ends, the tops of the trees are sharply cut away as if by a scythe. They are chilled and eaten down by the sea-drift. The best wood in the northern part of the county is at Castlehill, where the imported trees are protected by rising grounds on all sides. The only tree that thrives in Caithness is the common bourtree or elder. The trembling poplar, the white birch, and the hazel, are also occasionally found in sheltered places. But though the county of Caithness is for the most 3 30 THE COAST SCENERY. CHAP. iv. part flat and cheerless, it is redeemed from monotony by its glorious coast scenery. On the east, as well as on the west, the rocks jut out into the ocean in stupendous cliffs. "When the stormy winds do blow" is the time to see the wonders of the north at Duncansby Head, at Dunnet Head, at Holborn Head, at Noss Head, and, indeed, all round the coast. At Wick Bay, only a few years ago, a tremendous storm from the east dashed to pieces the new breakwater, lilting up stones of tons weight and dashing them on the beach, thus setting at defiance the skill and ingenuity of the engineer who had built it. Duncansby Head is also exposed to the full fury of the North Sea. It is a continuous precipice about two miles in extent, and of a semicircular shape. It is re- markable for its stupendous boldness, and the wild and striking appearance of the chasms and goes by which it is indented. In front of the cliff are three Stacks, which have been washed round by successive storms, and stand out bare and red several hundred yards from the mainland. The cliff consists principally of old red sand- stone, and partly of Caithness slate. The huge, long, white-crested billows, lashed into fury by the storm, chase each other up the beach, and burst with astounding force. At high tide, they dash up the cliffs and rush over the summit into the mainland. Fiom thence they run down over the inland slopes, into a rivulet which joins the Pentland Firth near John o' Groat's. From the summit of the cliff a fine view is obtained of the Skerries at the mouth of the Firth, of CHAP. iv. CAITHNESS OLD CASTLES. 31 Stroma, the island in the current, and of the Orkney Islands as far as the bold headland of Hoy. Along the east coast, numberless castles are built upon the cliffs. They are mostly in ruins. Many ot them are prehistoric. Wick Castle, Girnigo Castle, and Keiss Castle, are the oldest. No one knows who built them. Most probably they are the strongholds of the Scandinavian chiefs, who, at some unknown period, took possession of the lowland part of the county. The castle of Al-Wick or, as it is usually called, the Auld Man of Wick seems to be one of the most ancient. It consists of a grim-looking tower or keep of the rudest masonry, perforated here and there with arrow -slits. It is three stories high; but entirely roofless and floorless. It is surrounded by an outer wall, within which are the ruins of some old houses. A deep broad. moat defends it on the land side. At present, it forms an excellent landmark to vessels approaching that part of the coast. Girnigo Castle, situated on the promontory of Noss Head, is also very old. Castle Sinclair, which was added to it, has a history, which Girnigo has not. But the old builders were so much better than the new ones, that while Castle Sinclair has fallen to ruins, Girnigo Castle stands as firmly as it did at the time at which it was built. The constantly rolling sea, ever for ever, washes itself against the rocks, grinding away the softest parts. The red sandstone goes first, leaving long hollows amongst the slates, through which the sea drives in- land. In stormy weather, the waves wash in with GIRNIGO CASTLE. greatforce, some- times a quarter of a mile or more* and at the" far end, they d^ive up into the open air, blowing like a whale. These hollows under the rocks are called goes or gyoes. They are common x ^ all round Caithness. One of them is near Wick, at the castle of Al - Wick. Eobert Dick describes another near Thurso, which will be found referred to in a future part Of the Story. [GIRNIGO CA From the northern part of Caithness, where the ground is comparatively flat inland, and full of lochs from Thurso to Wick, the land gradually ascends, until we find hills and then mountains close upon the borders of Sutherland. Morven, Maiden Pap, AGRICULTURE. 32 and Skerry Ben, form part of a range of mountains, extending from Sandside Bay on the north, to Helms- dale on the south. Morven is the great mountain of Caithness. It is 2331 feet high. It is regarded as the great weather-glass of the county. When the mist gathers about its base, rain is sure to follow ; but when the mist ascends to the top and disperses, leaving the majestic outline of the mountain exposed to view, then the weather will be fine. " During harvest especially," says a local writer, "all eyes are directed towards it; and it never deceives. " In vision I behold tall Morven stand, And see the morning mist distilling tears Around his shoulders, desolate and yrand." From what we have already stated, it will be under- stood that Caithness is by no means a fertile county. Until a comparatively recent period agriculture was in a very backward state. When Pennant visited the county about a hundred years ago, he describes it as little better than " an immense morass," with here and there some fruitful spots of oats and here, and much coarse grass. In those places where any agriculture was carried on, the women did the work of horses. They carried the manure on their backs to the field; and did the most of the manual labour. The land could scarcely be called ploughed. The Caithness plough was one- stilted. It was dragged over the ground by a yoke of oxen, driven by a woman. There were neither barns nor granaries in the county. The corn was preserved 34 ROADS. in the chaff in bykes, which were low stacks in the shape of bee-hives, thatched quite round. Thurso, the chief place in Caithness, carried on a trade with Norway and Denmark, long before it began to communicate with the rest of Scotland. The sea was by far the easiest mode of transit; and all tne people along the coast were sailors. But, indeed, there was very little traffic to be carried on. The only two clusters of houses in the county were Thurso and Wick. Thurso must have been the more important place, as it not only had a church, but also a bishop the Bishop's Palace being close at hand. Thurso was a small fishing town, and Wick contained only a few hundred inhabitants. But the fishing ha,s long left Thurso, and gone to Wick. " The only fishing at Thurso now," said Dick, "is sillocks and sillock scrae. The salmon fishing, however, is the best in the king- dom." There were then no roads in Caithness. The exten- sive hollows in the flat slaty ground were filled with morasses. There was not a single wheel-cart in the county before 1780. Crubbans were the substitutes for carts. They were wicker baskets. Two of them, hung one on each side of a pony from a. wooden saddle, be- neath which was a cushion of straw, carried corn, goods, and other articles. Six or seven ponies thus loaded, says Henderson in his Agricultural Survey of Caithness, might be seen going in a kind of Indian file, each tied by the halter to the other's tail, a person leading the front horse, and each of the others was pulled forward THE ORD OF CAITHNESS 35 by the tail of the one before him. Yet traffic was car- ried on throughout England in the same manner, about three hundred years ago. Caithness was behind in everything. The only geo- graphy of the county was known from Danish sources. Timothy Pont made his first map in 1608. It was shut out from the rest of Scotland by the mountainous county of Sutherland.* It was long before a road could be made to enable the people to communicate with their countrymen farther south. The only road lay along the eastern shore, among rocks and sand, which were often covered by the tide. The inland road lay over the Ord of Caithness. The Ord is a formidable pass between Sutherland and Caithness. It is situated at the eastern boundary of the two counties. There is a lofty mountain on one side of the road, and a steep precipice on the other, at the foot of which is the sea. The Ord is the termination of a long mountain ridge, and is the brow of a steep hill overhanging the ocean. On the Sutherland side, the headland is cleft into a gorge of great depth, which runs a long way inland. The old road before the present bridge was built over the gorge was a mere path or shelf along the outer edge of the promontory twelve hundred feet above the sea. When * It may seem strange to us that the extreme north-western corner of Great Britain should be called Sutherland. No inhabitants of Scot- land could have bestowed so inappropriate a name. It was evidently given by a people living still farther to the , north. Sutherland, in short, is the mainland to the south of the Orkney Jarldom. Here, as well as in Caithness, we find numerous Norwegian names. The barren uplands were left to the Gael. TAYLOB, Words and Places. THE ORD OF CAITHNESS. the weather was stormy, it could not be passed in safety. Even in fair weather, the road was so difficult and dan- gerous that, when the chaise of a landed proprietor had to pass it, a force of fifteen or twenty persons was employed to help on the carriage and horses. JBD OF CAITHNESS. Pennant, who travelled into many strange places, described the pass as " infinitely more high and horrible than Penmaenmaur in Wales ;" and another writer says, " that if any stumble thereupon, they are in danger of falling down a precipice into the sea at the bottom of the rock, which is very terrible to behold." The old path is still to be seen from Helmsdale. It is like a ROAD OVER BEXC11EILT. 37 sheep-track winding up the steep brow of the hill, some three or four hundred feet above the rolling surge. The road to Thurso from the Ord road was almost impassable. It was a mere horse track over the hill of Bencheilt. This road was made passable for carriages through the energy of Sir John Sinclair. The Abbe" Gregoire denominated Sir John " the most indefatigable man in Europe." To him the improvement of the county of Caithness in a great measure belongs. He was born at Thurso Castle, an ancient edifice built by the sixth Earl of Caithness. It has since been pulled down to make room for a spick-and-span new castle, much less picturesque than the old one. It stood almost within sea-mark on Thurso Bay. In stormy weather, the sea spray sometimes passed over the roof. Miss Catherine Sinclair has said that fish have been caught with a line from the drawing-room window ; and vessels have been wrecked so close under the turrets, that the voices of the drowning sailors have been heard. When Sir John succeeded to his estates, three-fourths of Caithness consisted of deep peat-moss, and of hills covered with heath, or altogether naked. On arriving at his majority, he determined upon the improvement of his estates, and of the county generally. One of the first things that he did was to endeavour to make a roaa to Thurso over Bencheilt, in the centre pf the county. He himself surveyed the road and marked out its lines. He called together twelve hundred and sixty labourers to meet him early one morning, and set them all simul- taneously to work. They began at the dawn of day, 3* 38 SJK JOHN SINCLAIR. CHAP. iv. and before nightfall, the sheep-track, six miles in length, was converted into a road perfectly easy for carts and carriages. This showed what energy could accomplish. The young laird was not satisfied with that. He formed a large number of farms on his own estate. He enclosed, drained, and reduced them to order, entirely at his own expense. He built bridges ; he made roads ; he introduced the best cattle ; he provided the best turnip, rye-grass, and clover seeds ; he enjoined upon his farmers to adopt a regular rotation of crops ; and in a short time converted what had been a barren wilderness into a well-cultivated district. He enclosed on his own estate about 12,000 English acres of waste land, all of which eventually repaid the outlay. Among his other achievements, he introduced the Cheviot breed of sheep into the whole^of Scotland, and thus doubled the value of the grazing grounds north of the Tweed. Sir John tried to introduce trees at Thurso, but he found it difficult to make them grow. It was necessary to dig a hole of large dimensions through the subsoil of slaty rock, over which the tenants of the neighbouring townlands were obliged annually, for seven years, to heap a large mound of compost. And even when the trees did grow they were often blown away by the furious winds from the north and west. Sir John even tried to introduce nightingales into Caithness ! But Nature baffled his efforts. He obtained nightingales' eggs from the London bird fanciers. They were substituted for those of the robin redbreast. The THURSO NIGHTINGALES. eggs were hatched. The young nightingales soon flew about the bushes round Thurso Castle. But so soon as the summer had ended, the birds disappeared and never returned. DUNCANSBY HEAD. CHAPTER V. DICK BEGINS BUSINESS. DICK began business for himself at the age of twenty. His house was in Wilson's Lane, not far from the old church. The river Thurso flows past the bottom of the lane into the sea, which is close at hand. Mr. Smith, of Olrig, was the proprietor. After he had built a small oven behind the house and added it to the shop, Dick went over from his father's house to live there and begin his trade. The only other baker in the town was a Mr. Mackay, who was also a Baptist preacher. There was not much trade to be done ; but Eobert baked a little every day, and sold his bread over the counter. When he was out, his sister Jane attended to the business. He contrived to live on very small earn- ings, for he had only himself to provide for. He required very little capital, for every day's batch returned the money's worth of the flour, as well as the profit to the baker. Shortly after he began business, we find him writing to Mr. Aikman, of Tullibody, and requesting him to send four bags of third flour, one bag of second, and one bag of best. Mr. Aikman sent the flour to Thurso. Dick CHAP v. CONCHOLOGY. 41 remitted 5 ; but his old master said " he need not re- mit the balance, as he would have need of the money." In fact, three years elapsed before Eobert Dick could send him the balance of the account. When Dick's bread was sold, or while his sister Jane was watching the shop, he went out to walk along the shore. He crossed the river by the stepping-stones while the tide was out, and was at once in Thurso East. He passed under the castle and walked along the shore, some- times as far as Dunnet Bay. He delighted to see the long rolling waves come thundering in and break upon the shore in clouds of spray. The broken surge, churned into foam, rushed rapidly up the beach with the speed of a racehorse, and then rushed rapidly back again. Even in calm weather, there is a ceaseless moaning of the surge, indicating the remnant of some storm far away in the Atlantic. When the storm comes nearer the land, the waves are stronger and louder, spending their billows on the shore. " Sometimes," says Dick, " the noise of the bay is heard booming over the town with a terrible roar." His walks along the shore awakened in him a taste for conchology. He gathered shells by the score, and arranged them in a cabinet. He gathered up numerous things besides shells. He found a specimen of the nut of the cow-itch shrub of the West Indies, such a nut as the brother-in-law of Columbus found floating near Madeira, which led the great navigator to infer the existence of a western continent. He found also wood, drilled by the Teredo navalis, and many specimens of 42 BOTANY. seaweed, which had been washed by south-westerly winds from the Gulf of Mexico.* Shells, and the mollusks which inhabit them, were not, however, sufficient to occupy his attention. He had plenty of spare time. Indeed, after his bread was baked, his work was nearly over for the day. He had to set the sponge at night, ready for next day's batch. But that occupied comparatively little time. Meanwhile he was busy with his books and his studies. He did not make any companions. He had never felt much of the comforts of home. His social nature had been almost soured there. The feeling never left him, but clung to him through life. He therefore roamed about by himself along the shore, or studied by himself in his solitary household. He reverted to his study of botany, though it might not be supposed that Thurso was a fit place for such a study. The neighbourhood was without trees, with- out hedges with only flagstones dividing one field from another. Yet the seeing eye is never without proper aliment. It finds wonders in everything. Where the unseeing eye sees nothing, it detects differences, and varieties, and classifications. But he did not as yet go * In a specimen of fucoid, about two and a half feet in length, which I owe to the kindness of Mr. Dick of Thurso, there are stems continu- ous throughout, that though they ramify into from six to eight branches in that space, they are quite as thick at top as at bottom. They are the remains, in all probability, of a long flexible fucoid, like those fucoids of the intertropical seas, that, streaming slantwise in the tide, rise not uufrequently to the surface in fifteen and twenty fathoms water. HUGH MILLER, Rambles of a Geologist. CHAP. v. THE SEA SHORE. 43 deeply into the subject, for he could not afford to buy books. Nevertheless, he accurately distinguished the differences of one plant from another. The further pursuit of botany was held in reserve for some future time. About two years after Robert Dick had begun business in Thurso, his father was promoted to the office of Collector of Excise, and was removed to Haddington, where he ended his official career. His eldest sister Agnes married Mr. Alexander, and afterwards removed to Tullibody. When all the family had left, Eobert was left alone literally alone. He then took into his service Annie Mackay, a Highland woman, who served him long and faithfully to the close of his life. She was his housekeeper, and attended to the shop while Dick was on his journeys through Caithness. Yet Robert, though alone, was not solitary. Nature was all in all to him. He enjoyed his walks along the sea-shore, and sang to himself as he went along. He wandered about Dunnet Head, and the rocky cliffs at Holborn Head. He saw many things that had never been seen before. He detected the scales of fish, and even the heads of fossil fish amongst the rocks. The Clett on Holborn Head was one of his favourite spots. It is a huge isolated mass of rock, composed of dark flagstone. It is inaccessible by human foot. The rock is quite perpendicular. The surges of the ocean have washed it away from the mainland. It is screaming with sea birds. Miles away you hear the cries of the okies, or auks, which haunt it. They sit in long rows, 44 THE COUNTRY INLAND. CHAP. v. " like a lot of bottles on end," as Dick described them, on the ledges of the Clett, and there they 'breed and bring up their young. Here, as on the east coast, great Goes are found. The sea dashes in through the washable rocks, and drives up in clouds of vapour far inland. One of the Goes is about three miles in length. In great storms the sea deluges the whole headland, and pours back in clouds of spray. In some places the rocks are hollowed into arches by the surge, and in great gales the sea pours into them with a rush of foam. To the west of Holborn Head there is a long line of projecting headlands, and in a clear day Cape Wrath may be seen some fifty miles off. There is no land between you and the coasts of Labrador nothing but the boundless ocean. Dick also explored the country inland. The river Thurso was the scene of some of his future discoveries. He went far up to the castle of Dirlot, one of the oldest buildings in Caithness. He went up the hills near Thurso, from which he saw the gigantic Morven far away in the distance. He visited the Eeay hills and the Shurery hills, which were afterwards his favourite botanic grounds. He was thus laying the foundations of his future knowledge, not only in botanical, but in geological science. In the meantime he turned aside to pursue the study of entomology. Here his seeing eye was of great use ;o him. He worked out the natural history of the insects of Caithness from his own personal observation. Notliing escaped him. He collected no less than 256 specimens CHAP. v. BEETLE GATHERING. 45 of beetles in nine months, in fact, all that could be collected in Caithness. He collected 220 specimens of bees, and 240 specimens of butterflies and moths. These are all to be seen in the Thurso Museum. They are now covered with living moths, grubs, and woodlice, and fast going to decay. The boys soon found out the strange baker and his ongoings. Boys are great critics. They immediately detect nonconformity. When they saw Dick coming out of his shop in his chimney-pot hat, his swallow-tailed coat, and jean trousers, they were immediately after him. They followed him at a little distance. He went up the green sward alongside the river ; knelt down on his knees ; crawled onward ; and then brought his hand slap down. It was perhaps some insect that he had been long seeking for. The boys saw him take off his hat, put in the object, perhaps impaling it with a pin. When Dick went away, the boys went up to the spot to see what he had been about. They found nothing whatever, only green grass. They did not know that Dick had found a splendid beetle. They went home to their friends, and told them what they had seen. It thus became known that he was an insect-collector. What could he want with the beetles and grubs ? Surely he could not put them into his bread ! Faugh ! Then they whispered about that they had got a mad baker amongst them. Dick, however, made friends of the boys. He said to them, "Whenever you can find a rare butterfly, bring it to me, and I will give you something for it. If it be in 46 THE DRAGON FLY. CHAP. v. any way injured I will not have it." Away the boys went hunting butterflies. Sometimes they brought him in a good specimen, and he gave them sixpence for it. Sixpence was a fortune to them. It bought no end of tops, clagum, and sweeties. If the butterfly was of no use, he would take it in his hand, and let it out of the back window. " Perhaps," he said, " they may bring something valuable next time." When an unusual butterfly was brought to him, he took great care of it, saw it go through its various transformations, and noted the results. s His love of insects became known, and his curiosity about them spread throughout the neighbourhood. Country people called upon him and brought what they thought rare things. One day a man called upon him, and, standing right before him, took out of his pocket a paper lucifer box, and cautiously screwing off the lid, he said " See !" Dick looked into the box, and seizing the creature within it by the tail, he pulled it out, and then shoved it in again. " Won't it sting ?" asked the man. " Oh, no," said Dick, " it is a very humble creature, only the Green Dragon My : it lives by devouring small flies." " Oh !" said the man, " the country folks call it the Bull Adder, and they say that it stings." " I wouldn't have taken it by the tail if it did." "Won't you have it ?" " No !" The man accordingly went away with the dragon-fly in his box. Robert Dick's mind was athirst for knowledge at this time. He was searching for facts of all sorts. In 1835 he attended three courses of lectures delivered by Mr. CHAP. v. PHRENOLOGY. 47 Keir. They were upon astronomy, geology, and phreno- logy. He was greatly interested by the lectures. He not only heard them closely, but followed them up by study. He was particularly impressed by the lectures on astronomy. Halley's Comet was then careering through the heavens. Appearing, as it did, once in every seventy-five years, it was calculated to make a deep impression upon his thoughtful mind. He borrowed such books on astronomy as he could obtain, and read them eagerly. He thus gathered a general notion of the subject ; but he had no means of following it up. Telescopes were unknown at Thurso. He could only look up to the heavens, and admire and wonder. He was thus in a measure forced to inquire into such matters as lay within his own reach. He was sent back to mother earth, the secrets of which still remained to be unveiled. Hence his love for geology, and the beginning of his knowledge of the rocks of Thurso, which he first obtained from Keir's lectures. Phrenology also excited his deep interest. The sub- ject had been made popular throughout Scotland by the lectures and works, and probably by the personal influence, of George Combe of Edinburgh. Though the " science," as it was then called, is now nearly forgotten, it was then the subject of much discussion. George Combe started the Phrenological Magazine to advocate his views, and to maintain the principles of phrenology. He also established the Phrenological Lecture Hall and Museum, where he collected an immense number of busts of distinguished and notorious characters. BOTANY. Dick, in his enthusiasm, had his head shaved, and a cast was taken of it in plaster of Paris. He gave half a crown to a brave little girl, and induced her to have her head shaved; after which he made a cast of her head in the usual way. He sent to Edinburgh and had a phrenological cranium from O'Neil, the famous cast- maker. Writing to his eldest sister, he said, " Mind, Nan, that when you seek for a wife for Robert, you must find one with a high forehead. None else are genuine." But Eobert could not go on looking at people's heads, and studying their development. Big heads and little heads, big bumps and little bumps, seemed a profitless study. So he condescended to study more practical subjects, things that lie at every man's door. He could no ': grasp the heavens. He could understand the planetary system ; but he could not unravel the deeper meanings of the vast circle cf creation. He could, however, de- scend to the things that lay at his feet, to his commoD mother earth, which is as full of wonders as the stars. He could pursue his first love, the love of flowers and plants, which he had pursued while wandering among the Ochil hills. Dick was still a bachelor. He had a house and a' shop to manage ; and some of his friends advised him to marry. His old master, Mr. Aikman of Tullibody, writing to him in 1834, said : " Mrs. Aikman sends her kind respects to you. She is happy to think that you are still a bachelor, as her family is mostly girls." Another friend at Greenock, where Dick had lived when a journeyman, wrote to him thus : " My wife sends her CHAP. v. BISCUIT MAKING. 43 best wishes. She hopes you will soon get married. You are losing time completely. If you wait much longer I will be speaking to you about my daughter. We are beating up. We have two married already. Come, come, look sharp!" But the fly, however skilfully thrown, could not draw the fish from his depths. We have been informed that Eobert once made a proposal of marriage to a young lady, but that she refused him. Some overtures of reconciliation were afterwards made. But he had been refused once; he would not be refused again. The disappointment only threw him back upon himself. He became more recluse, soli- tary, and companionless, than before. He was satisfied to remain unmarried, with Annie Mackay as his servant and housekeeper. Among the things which occupied Dick's attention, was a mechanical method which he proposed for work- ing up his biscuit, instead of using the baker's rail. For it must be known that he was the best biscuit-maker in Thurso. He had brought this art from Tullibody. Be- sides, his master sent him the proper receipts for the different kinds of biscuit and " parlyment." In making biscuit, the practice is to work the dough in the trough ; the baker sitting on a rail, bumping the stuff up and down in a radiating manner. Dick thought this might as well be done by machinery. He got a mechanic to help him to perfect the machine ; but though it was completed, it was not used. His trade was not great ; and he found that his own hands were amply sufficient for the purpose of making his daily bread. CHAPTEE VI BOTANICAL WANDERINGS. ROBERT DICK proceeded with his study of natural science. From conchology he went on to entomology and botany. He gathered insects while he collected plants. They both lay in the same beat. After his bread was baked in the morning and ready for sale, he left the shop to the care of his housekeeper, and went out upon a search. Or, he would take a journey to the moors and mountains, and return home at night to prepare for the next day's baking. He began to' make his entomological collection about the year 1836, when he was about twenty- five years old. He worked so hard at the subject, and made so many excursions through the country, that in about nine months he had collected nearly all the insect tribes that Caithness contained. He spent nearly every moment that he could spare until he thought he had exhausted the field. He worked out the subject from his own personal observation. He was one of those men who would not take anything for granted. Books were an essential end ; but his knowledge was not founded on books, but on Nature. He must inquire, search, and observe for CHAP. vi. CAREFUL OBSERVATION. 51 himself. He was not satisfied with the observations of others. He must get at the actual facts. He must himself verify everything stated in books. He was not satisfied with the common opinion as to the species or genus to which any individual of the insect world belonged. He tested and tried everything by the touchstone of science and careful observation. If he had any doubts about an insect, from a gnat to a dragon-fly, he would search out the grub, watch the process of its development from the larva and chrysalis state, until the fly emerged before him in unquestion- able identity. It will thus be observed that he was from the first imbued with the true scientific animu? ; and in the same spirit he continued to find out and discover the true workings of Nature. The Thurso people did not quite understand the proceedings of their young baker. He made good bread, and his biscuits were the best in the town. But he was sometimes seen coming back from the country bespattered with mud, perhaps after a forty or fifty miles' journey on the moors in search of specimens. What were they to make of this extraordinary conduct ? It could have no connection with baking. What could he have been doing during these long journeys ? He was now doing fairly in business. He was not yet distracted by the competition that afterwards ruined him. His wants were very small. He had only him- self and his housekeeper to provide for. He was accordingly able to save money, and with his surplus capital he bought books. 52 PURCHASES OF BOOKS. "How painfully, how slowly," he once said in a letter to Hugh Miller, "man accumulates knowledge! How easily, how quickly, it escapes and is gone ! Blessings on the noble art of printing, under the shadow of whose dominion, thoughts, words, and deeds, are piled up like the proliferous corn of old in the store- houses of Pharaoh ! " Dick was now buying his flour from a merchant in Leith. He requests the merchant to send him books as well as flour. The books were purchased, packed in paper in the centre of the bags, and despatched to Thurso, by way of Aberdeen, Wick, and the Pentland Firth. We find him thus receiving the Gardener's Dictionary, the Naturalist's Magazine, and the Flori- graphia Britannica. He also directs the flour merchant to buy him a microscope, and to send it him as soon as possible. Hie correspondent says, "I have at length bought for you the long-wished-for microscope. It is a very powerful one. I hope you will find yourself amply rewarded for your time and expense." The microscope was despatched in July 1835, and it reached Dick in safety. He found that, in the course of his investigations into the minutiae of objects, he could not do without the microscope. The flour merchant afterwards sent Dick numerous volumes of the Naturalist's Library, and bought for him a copy of Hogarth's Works, the large edition, with the original plates restored. We find, from the bill of lading accompanying the flour and the volume, that its oinding cost Dick two guineas. Other books, relating CHAP. vi. A DEVOURING READER. 53 principally to botany, conchology, and geology, shortly followed. Sometimes a phrenological cast from O'Neil was imbedded in the flour. We find, from the com- munications that passed between the correspondents, that Dick paid his accounts promptly, usually within a fortnight after the delivery of the flour. When the books arrived at Thurso, and were unearthed from the flour, Dick set to work and devoured them. For Dick was a great reader, almost a ferocious reader. He read everything about air, earth, sea, and heaven, as the multitude of books collected by him sufficiently indicate. He had plenty of leisure. When his bread was baked, and ready for sale, he had nothing else to do for the day but read and wander. When the weather was wet and stormy, as it often was, he read, drew, and wrote letters to far-away friends. For he had many correspondents, as the following pages will show. When the weather was fine, he set out on his walks, along the shore, or up the country, sometimes as far as Morven. '"Many is the walk," says one of his old acquaintances, " which I have enjoyed in his company on the sea-beach near Thurso Castle. I was once with him, when I found a new shell, and it was truly delightful to hear him explain its history and habits, as if it had been his next-door neighbour, and he had known the tiny thing all his life long. How kindly and meekly he spoke, and how ready he was for a joke; and what a keen perception he had of the ridiculous in everything ihat crossed his observation. The same night we also 4 54 HIS WALKING POWERS. CHAP. vi. found a curious sort of nut, which he told me had been carried by the ocean currents and prevailing winds all the way from the West Indies, and was cast up 011 the beach just below Thurso Castle." " On another occasion," says the same writer, " I walked with him on a botanical excursion, as far as I OLD THURSO CASTLE : FROM THE SHORE. could, up the Thurso river; and I am not far from the truth when I say that he talked all the way. ' I begin slowly,' he said, referring to his walking, 'but we'll improve before long,' and so it proved; for before he had reached Oldfield he had got into a four-miles-an- hour pace, and by the time we reached Isauld it was a regular trot and race down the banks and across the river to one of his favourite haunts. I cannot now HIS LONELY JOURNEY. 55 remember what were the special prizes of the excursion, though I well remember that we came home richly loaded with things, to me rich and rare, which, with his usual kindness, he named and labelled for me next day. After a lapse of more than sixteen years, I lighted accidentally one day on a pile of plants, collected princi- pally in Caithness, and forming my first herbarium. It had passed through the hands of Mr. Dick, and bears his sign-manual on every sheet. Any one would say it is the handwriting of an educated man a bold, full, fluent hand without any trace of the crampedness and angularity of those who earn their bread by manual toil. Besides, the technical names of the plants are always spelt correctly." But it was very seldom that he made his botanical excursions with others. He almost invariably went alone. When he had arranged his work, and had a journey in view, he had everything in order by the hour that he intended to set out ; and then nothing would detain him. When about to start on a long journey, he wore thick-soled boots, with hob-nails in them. He soaked his stockings with water ; and when he came to a burn he soaked them again. He took with him some ship biscuit, which was easily carried. This constituted his principal refreshment during his long journeys. The burn or the mountain tarn supplied beverage enough for one of the most temperate and enduring of men. " I never drink much when travelling," he used to say. "It takes the wind out of me, and seriously interferes with my comfort and endurance/'' 56 SPRING IN THE NORTH. CHAP. vr. How he delighted in spring ! He welcomed its approach with joy. The winters were usually cold and stormy. The cold winds blew violently over Caithness, and prevented any green thing appearing on the surface. But Dick was up before the sun was up. He was out before the flowers were out. He watched them thrust- ing their way upwards into the air, watched them while they blossomed into flowers, and watched them while they shrank into decay. Spring is late in the north. Even at the beginning of May the earth is still brown. Only in some sheltered spots by the river-side are any green things to be seen. There are very few hedges near Thurso. " On the 4th of May," says Dick, " the buds are only swelling. There is no ' May blossom ' in Caithness. Even at the end of May the few hedges are not in full leaf." The first flowers that appear are the yellow Coltsfoot, the yellow Primrose, the yellow Buttercup, the Marsh Marigold, the little yellow Celandine, and a few blue flowers ot the Dog Violet. These are all the beauties of the northern flora in May. The cold winds are still sweep- ing over the county. Dick went out one morning at the end of May, towards the Eeay hills, to see how the flowers were growing. The morning was cold and cheerless. The flag fences along the road were hung with rain pearls. When he reached the Reay links, he found the ground covered with cowslips. From thence he went up the hills to the waterfall to gather ferns. They were only beginning to expand. The summer moss, Polytrichum CHAP. vi. FERNS IN JUNE. 57 was there in thousands. By and by everything would be in bloom. Even on the 24th of June midsummer day the ferns were not fully out. " The first fern I saw," says Dick, " was Lastrea dilatata, but it was so ugly that it was not worth looking at a second time. The next I saw was Asplenium trichomanes, or Common Maiden Hair ; but the specimens were too small for my pur- pose. The next was the Black-stalked Spleenwort. I passed through a forest of brackens, and saw the Northern Hard Fern, and the Black Bog-rush a plant rare in Scotland, even on the west coast. I passed on and went up-hill, where I saw the Beech Fern and many other plants, of which European Sanicle was the most abun- dant. It was once thought to cure every disease, and was called ' Self-heal.' I saw the Common Polypody, and the Oak Polypody. Up the hill the Foxglove was the most conspicuous. I also found "Woodruff, Spotted- leaved Hawkweed, and Persian Willow; white roses and red roses ; and other plants too numerous to mention. I wound along by a sheep-road to the hill-top, and lay down, looking across the dead level of the county. I counted thirteen lochs ! " At the beginning of July, he adds, "We are just getting into first-rate order here as to wild plants. We shall by and by have a grand display of yellow flowers all yellow ; tens of thousands, and ten times ten, all destined to pass away after fulfilling the great end for which they came into flower leaving seed for times to come times without end." 58 CAITHNESS FLORA. On the 24th of July he says, " Now it gets warmer. The corn becomes half full of marigold. The heather begins to bloom. I made for the seaside," he adds, " and found a butterfly sleeping on the heather ! Poor thing !" As the summer heat increases, the Caithness grasses, plants, and flowers, make their appearance in succession. " People in the south," says Dick, " think that as Caithness is so far north, its flora must differ greatly from that in their own neighbourhood. No doubt the general aspect of a district in the south differs very strikingly in its prominent features. And yet, after all, we have very few plants that may not also be found in the south. " The Caithness flora is not alpine not even sub- alpine. I know of only three Baltic plants in Caith- ness ; and of these only one is a rarity. Indeed it is peculiar to Caithness ; for Caithness is the only British district in which it grows. We have the Baltic rush by the river-side. But then Juncus balticus grows at Barry Sands, near Dundee. Last summer, I was much pleased to meet the Baltic rush growing in a small marsh about six miles inland. I was highly delighted. I had never seen it so far from the sea." Robert Dick proceeded with the study of botany in the most resolute way. He would take nothing for granted. Where others had observed, he also would observe, and verify for himself. Hence, with the utmost toil and labour, he wandered over Caithness, to see the plants growing in their native habitats. He must find them where they grew, and study them, from CHAP. vi. THE NORTHERN MIDSUMMER. 59 time to time, on the spot. He determined to master the entire subject. He mapped out the country into districts, and resolved carefully to examine each of them in turn. It was a long and arduous work, but he suc- cessfully carried out his purpose. At length the plants of Caithness, from one end of the county to the other from the Morven hills in the south to Dunnet Head in the north from Noss Head in the east to Halladale Head in the west became as familiar to him as the faces of familiar friends. The banks of the river Thurso were among his favourite haunts. He searched the valley in its remotest nooks, from its source in Bencheilt to its entrance into the sea at Thurso. The flats along its serpentine course abound in plants and grasses, which he scanned with the true naturalist's eye. During the long summer nights, when " day never darkens into mirk," he would make journeys of forty or fifty miles, for the purpose of gather- ing some favourite plant in its far-off native habitat. He would return home in glory, bringing with him a stem of grass, a flower, or a bulb. During midsummer time in the north, it is light nearly all the night through. The sun slightly descends below the horizon, but the light still remains. Farther north, the sun is seen at midnight. When it rises in Caithness, the morning is a prolonged dawn. An eloquent writer says, " The earth is most beautiful at dawn ; but so very few people see it, and the few that do are almost all of them labourers, whose eyes have no sight for that wonderful peace, and coolness, and unspeakable 60 SOLITUDE NOT LONELINESS. CHAP. vi. sense of rest and hope which He like a blessing on the land. I think if people oftener saw the break of day they would vow oftener to keep that dawning day holy and would not so often let its fair hours drift away with nothing done that were not best left undone." Dick had many a long and lonely walk at sunset, at dawn, and even at midnight. And yet he was not lonely. His love of nature made a paradise of that bare north country. His solitude was not loneliness. Solitude, to him, was sweet society. He felt the companionship of nature about him on the moors, in the mountains, and along the sea-shore. On calm evenings, when the sea was at rest, he walked along the sands. The sea, though quiet, seemed to breathe. It was like a living thing like a creature at rest. Dick was an insatiable wanderer. When he had done his daily work, and the weather was fine, he set out on his botanical excursions. The county was all before him. He would go to the Reay hills in search of ferns ; or up the Thurso river in search of plants and grasses ; or to the extreme point of Dunnet Head. His eyes were always open to receive new impressions. He wondered at the infinite varieties of nature, even in that cold bare country. The lines written by Longfellow upon another great lover of nature, are quite as appli- cable to Dick : " And he wandered away and away With Nature, the dear old nurse, Who sang to him night and day The rhymes of the universe. CHAP. vi. JO Y ON THE MOORS. 61 " And whenever the way seemed long, Or his heart began to fail, She would sing a more wonderful song, Or tell a more marvellous tale." He was more joyful on the moors than amid the noise of streets. There he was alone with himself. Not a sound was to be heard as he trudged along, save the beating of his own heart not a voice save that of heaven. The clouds threw their purple shadows over the moor. The grouse flew up with a whirr, whirr! The blue mountain hare flew past him, though there was no danger to be apprehended from him. The deluge sometimes caught him. One afternoon, in August, he walked thirty-two miles amidst soaking rain. He had gone up to the top of a mountain, and found only a plant of white heather. He walked and ran all the way back, through moors, mosses, and heather, jumping the flagstone fences ; and at last reached home after nine and a half hours' walking and running. Yet he was up next morning at six, and went through his day's work as usual. The following is a pleasanter day's adventure. It was written to his sister at the end of August : " Since I wrote you last, I have managed to walk thirty-six miles. Long, long ago, I chanced to find a Fern eighteen miles up the country. It was not new, consequently not a discovery ; but it was as good as such to me. It had never crossed me in all my wanderings, or rather I had never found it until then. No one told me where it grew, for the best of reasons that no one knew, A HIGHLAND GLEN. Since I first found it, I have every year gone a- walking to it, just to visii it, again and again. Tliis year, I have been there and back. The fern is very small : I enclose a specimen. It is the Rue-leaved, or Wall Spleenwort. The rocky spot in which it grows contains many other ferns, some of them not at all common. " Besides the wild rocky scenery of the place, there is the only approach to a Highland glen which we have in Caitliness. You set out from Thurso, and for the first three or four miles there is nothing but corn and bere on each side of the road ; and in dry leas, showers of yellow Crowfoots and Ragworts ; with here and there the blue heads of Scabious, or yellow Dandelions, or yellow Hawkbits. All is yellow, yellow, dashed here and there with masses of purple heath, redder by far than you can possibly imagine. " On you go? .diverting the time as you best can, foi all is wonderful. Then, at the distance of ten miles from Thurso, you are on a hill-top, and you stand and look around you. It is sweet to stand on a hill-top, and gaze far up the country. Southwards you see farther than you will ever wander. Of course you cannot tell in words all that you see. You gaze eastward, north- ward, and westward ; and then, after satiating yourself with the prospect, you move down the farther side of the hill, and get onward. Twelve miles, thirteen miles, and many wonders are to be seen. And in due time you get among the heather heather everywhere and water black to drink. After going a mile through a moor, you find yourself all at once on the brink of a CHAP. vi. A LONELY MOOR. 63 precipice. You look down, and the waters are tumbling and surging below; you are satisfied, and could sing with joy too. After a time, I went my way home- wards." Dick often relieved his solitary moments by writing to his sister, then living at Haddington. She had com- plained to him of her lowness of spirits, when he thus wrote : " Cheer up, cheer up, my bonnie sister, and I will tell you a story. One fine summer evening, not long ago, your brother set out for the far-away hills. He had been there before. The sun's heat was strong when he set out (it was then August), but on he went, past bothies, and houses, and milestones, until he was 'o'er the muir amang the heather.' Then past burns and lochs, up a hill and over a hill, through a bog and through a mire, until the sun set, and still he was toil- ing on, with a long, long moor before him. " Have you ever been all alone on a dreary moor, when the shadows of the coming darkness are settling down, and the cold clammy fog goes creeping up the hill before you ? It is hard work and very uncanny walking to pick your steps, as there is no proper light to guide you. For you must remember that moors are not bowling-greens or finely-smoothed lawns. They may be flowery paths, it is true, but very rough ones, full of man-traps, jags, and holes, into which, if you once get, you may with difficulty wade your way out again. "But on I went, hop, step, and, jump, now up, now down, huffing and puffing, with my heart rapping against my breast like the clapper of a mill. Then 64 A HILL-TOP AT NIGHT. everything around looked so queer and so quiet, with the mist growing so thick that it was difficult to distin- guish one hill from another. Had I not been intimately acquainted with every knowe and hillock of the country through which I was travelling, I never could have got through it. But, cheer up ! never lose heart ! There's the little loch at last, and there's the hill ! Ay, but your work's not done yet. You must climb the hill, for what you seek is only upon its very top. "It's rough work running through a moor, but it takes your wind clean out of you to climb the hill that lies beyond it. Were you ever up a hill-top at night, your lee lane, with the mist swooping about you and drooking your whiskers and eyebrows ? I daresay no. But up this hill I had to clamber on my hands and knees to find the plants that I had come in search of. Yes ! I found them, though I was not quite sure until the sun had rise*n to enlighten me. Then I found that I had made out my point "The light enabled me to make my way downhill. Feeling thirsty, as well I might, I clambered over rocks, and braes, and heather, to a very pretty loch at the hill- foot. Picking my steps to a place full of large stones, I came to a pair of them where I stooped down into the clear water and drank my filL It is a grand thing to dip your nose down into the water like a bird, with the shingle and gravel lying below you, and then take your early morning drink. " But 1 have no time to say out my say. Only this, sister, only this : never lose heart in the thickest mists CHAP. vi. JOURNEY TO MORVEN. 65 you should ever get into ; but take heart, for assuredly the sun will rise again, and roll them up and away, to be seen no more." In a future letter to his sister, written on the 12th of November, he thus describes his journey to Morven top : "On Tuesday last I set out at two o'clock in the morning to go to the top of Morven. Morven is a hill to the south of this, and by measurement on the map 28 miles as the crow flies. But taking into account the windings and turnings of the road up hill, down hill, and along valleys it is a good deal more : say 32 miles from Thurso to Morven top. " For the first 18 miles I had a road : the rest of the way was round lochs, across burns, through mires and marshes, horrid bogs, and hummocky heaths. I tucked up my trousers, and felt quite at ease, though I was ankle deep, and often deeper, for fifteen minutes on end, and sometimes more. When I had a marsh to wade I had it level, but when I had heather I had an awful amount of jumping. ... At last, however, I found myself on the top of the famous Morven. " The Caithness people have few hills. They think a mighty deal of Morven and Maiden Pap and Skerry Ben. But these hills are not much to boast of. They are none of them as big as books make them, and I laughed when I thought of what people had said to me about this wonderful Morven. One said that it was so very high that it would take half a day to climb from the toot of the hill to the top. Another account, given in a book, 66 MORVEN TOP. stated that Morven could only be ascended from the west side, being totally inaccessible on all other sides. Downright nonsense! Morven is accessible on every " My object in ascending the hill was to gather plants, and of course I went up the steepest face to get among the crags and stones near the top. Morven is poor in plants. I found nothing new. True, the season was too far gone, but there in sheltered spots many of them still lived. On the top Alchemilla alpina was in flower. I observed from the decayed leaves on all sides that the various species were not many. Braalnabin, a much lower hill, and much nearer to Thurso, is better for ferns. Two weeks since I went there and got nine different ferns all in bloom, though none of them were new to me. " Strange it was to look around me. The day was cold and stormy. The sun was shining above me, but a snowstorm was battling far below. Skerry Ben was grey-white with snow. The sound of the wind among the crags was like the roaring of the sea along the shore. "I reached Morven top at eleven o'clock A.M. and left it at two P.M.* It was now mid-day. The river of Berridale runs at the foot of Morven. The best way of getting over it is to wade through it ; but what of that ? The Highlandman walks best when his feet are wet, and so does the Lowlandman, if he could only be persuaded to try. In going to Morven I had waded no fewer than six burns, and at least a score of marshes. My feet had not been dry since seven in the morning. MORTEN MOUNTAIN. WIND AND FIRE. 67 It was all the same to me which way I took. 'Onward !' was the word. And yet the light of day was gone and the moon was up, long long before I gained a civilised road. " The night became windy and stormy. Tremendous sheets of hailstones and rain impeded my progress, so much so that I thought, as Burns says, that ' the deil had business on his hand,' and that he was determined to finish my course with Morven. But no ! In spite of hail, rain, wind, and fire (in fact I had them all), I got home at three o'clock on Wednesday morning, having walked, with little halt, for about twenty-four hours. I went to bed, slept till seven o'clock, then rose, and went to my work as usual. Sixty miles is a good walk to look at a hill. Oh, those plants, those weary plants ! " On one of his midnight excursions Dick was taken for a poacher. It may be mentioned that the rivei Thurso is one of the best salmon rivers in Scotland, Indeed, in early spring, there is no river that comes up to it. Sir John Sinclair boasted that on one occasion 2500 salmon had been caught at one haul a draught that has never been exceeded. The price paid by the salmon- fishers is so high at present 20 per rod monthly that the river is carefully watched to prevent poaching. One night a gentleman in charge of the river went out to see that the keepers were doing their duty, and also to detect the poachers if he could. He went to a particular spot where there were evident traces of poach- ing. The river was then in good poaching order. Just at the break of day, an hour or more before sun- 68 STALKING A POACHER. CHAP. vi. rise, the watcher saw the figure of a man on the horizon, some hundred yards distant. He shrank down, and crept forward, watching the man's movements in the grey dawn of morn. He was seen close by the river's side, prowling up and down the banks. Surely this must be a poacher. The man moved on. When he appeared on some liigh bank, the watcher hid himself so that he might not be seen between him and the horizon. He crawled forward on all fours, stalking the poacher as he would a deer. At last, after nearly two hours' stalking and dodging, the man suddenly disappeared in some low crevices in the rocks, just below Dirlot Bridge. The sun was just rising ; the watcher saw him crouching down, as if hiding something amongst the ferns. Of course it must be a salmon ! -With beating heart, he suddenly rushed up to the man," and shouted, "Now I have caught you poaching!" The man's back was towards him. He was intently gazing on some object before him. He turned round in a composed manner, and said, " No, sir, I am not poach- ing ; I am only gathering some specimens of plants !" He then opened his handkerchief, which contained some herbs, plants, and flowers. The watcher was disap- pointed and disgusted. He had been crawling for two hours on his hands and knees, coming up with his man, and finding in his possession, not a salmon, but a lot of things which, in his estimation, were worse than useless ! Dick was then sixteen miles from Thurso, He had CHAP. vi. THE STALKER DISAPPOINTED. 69 left home at midnight in search of his favourite botanical specimens. Some of them were so minute and delicate that they could only be seen at sun-dawn. It was only at the break of day that they unfolded their delicate tints, spread their leaves, and put forth their lovely blossoms to the rising sun perhaps revealed to the per- fervid botanist by the glistening of a dew-drop. Thus Dick was rewarded, but not the salmon-watcher who had stalked him. CHAPTER VII. DISCOVERS THE "HOLY GRASS." " IT is surely," said Dick to a Mend, " a strange time we live in, when a poor devil cannot gather weeds without being made a nine days' wonder of to some, and a butt of derision to others." Many people about Thurso, who saw Dick coming into the town with his feet bedabbled with dirt and his jean trousers wet up to the knees, said that he would have been much better employed in attending to his bakery than in wandering about the country in search of beetles, bumbees, ferns, and wild plants. But he never missed attending to his business. Science was his pleasure; and the. pursuit of it became his habit. One science led to another. From Con- chology he went to Entomology, and from these he went to Botany and Geology. Nothing came amiss to him. He found " sermons in stones, and good in every- thing." For a long time he kept all that he did to him- self. He had no friends to whom he could com- municate the knowledge he had acquired. He was only a poor baker. He did not mix with the educated class. He spent his thrifty savings on books. His CHAP. vii. RECEIVES A DEPUTATION. 71 dress cost little. His best clothes were many years old. His long swallow-tailed coat with brass buttons was considered antediluvian. His tall chimney-pot hat was entirely out of date. Sometimes he was jeered at as he passed along. The boys knew that he had a love of nature. This is the first taste that a country boy develops. Some- times they were a little frightened at him. They viewed him with awe, if not apprehension, when they encountered him among the rocks with his hammer and chisel, or came upon him as he emerged from a ditch, or from behind a turf wall, in his pursuit of insects, or grasses, or mosses. But their fear was always tempered by the knowledge that any curiosity they alighted on, in the shape of a stone, or a butterfly, or a beetle, would always be repaid by the mysterious man when brought to him, by a roll, or a cookie, or a biscuit, or sometimes by a sixpence. One boy now a well-known minister called upon Dick when about twelve years old. He was sent, with another boy, as a deputation from a number of their schoolfellows, to ascertain something about the bones of a cuttle-fish which they had found upon the shore. The boys went into his shop with considerable fear; but they found the baker in excellent humour. He brought down from his library several books, which he spread out among the loaves of bread on his counter, and pointed out to them specimens of other cuttle-fish bones that had been found. "We were much astonished," says the minister, " to be told that if we came back when 72 A GENERAL REFEREE. CHAP, vn he was less busy, he would tell us more about it ; but neither of us ever mustered courage for a second visit." Another says " Boys out bird-nesting on the braes, or fishing by the river-side or amongst the rocks, have often got from him a lesson in Natural History which they would hardly forget in a lifetime." Dick began to be considered a general referee. When anything unusual was found a plant, a stone, a butter- fly, or a fish he was at once appealed to. One day a boy came in with a message from a fisherman. A sun- fish had been caught in Thurso Bay, and brought ashore. Dick was sent for to come and see it. He was busy with his bread at the time, and could not leave the bakehouse. The fisherman sent another message, saying that if Dick did not come down immediately, he would cut up the fish. "Then tell him to cut away," said Dick ; " I don't like these peremptory orders." A person who made considerable pretensions to botanical knowledge met him one day, and asked if he knew whether the county produced any Statice armeria. "Oh!" said Dick, "if you will just call it Lea Gilly- flower, or, if you please, Thrift, you will find it at any roadside." Another gentleman found a pretty flower growing profusely in a small strath a few miles out of Thurso. He took it to Dick. "Do you know that?" he asked. " Yes," he said ; " you got it at the side of the burn at Olrig." " How do you know that ?" " Because it grows in two or three more places in Caithness ; but these are loo far off for you to have been there to-day." CHAP. vii. THE HOLY GRASS. 73 Another called upon him with a strange flower. " I have got a new thing for you to-day, Mr. Dick !" " Oh no," said Dick, " I know it quite well. You got it near Shebster " indicating a small hillock on a moor in the western part of the parish of Thurso. " Yes," said the inquirer; "but how do you know that?" "Simply because it grows nowhere else in Caithness." Thus, in course of time, he had pretty nearly mastered the botany of Caithness. Among his other discoveries of plants in Caithness, which had before been altogether unknown, was his discovery of the Hierochloe lorealis, or Northern Holy Grass, on the banks of the river Thurso. It is called Holy Grass, because the people in Sweden and Norway were in the habit of strewing their churches with it. It emits a scent when lying in quan- tities, and when trampled on by the feet of the wor- shippers. It is detected, when growing, by its beautiful spiral stem and its rich golden seed. The plant had been first admitted into the British Flora on the authority of Don. But no one else had found it. After the death of Don the plant was placed in the doubtful list of the London Catalogue, and it . was finally dropped out altogether. Dick was surprised at the discovery, but he took no means to make it known. He kept the plant for about twenty long years beside him. He was too solitary and too bashful to rush into print with his botanical findings. It was only when a young botanist, who had heard of Mr. Dick's scientific knowledge, called upon him, saw the plant and ascer- tained its habitat, that the information about the new 74 DICK'S REPORT. plant was communicated to the Professor of Botany at Edinburgh. The professor at first doubted the existence of the plant in Britain. He could scarcely believe that it existed in Caithness, the northernmost county of Scotland. He observed, however, that if Dick had really found the plant, he had rescued the celebrated botanist Don from an undeserved calumny. For Don had asserted that the plant was found in Britain, whereas all the botanists of note averred that the Holy Grass was not indigenous, but had been imported from other countries. Dick was specially requested to send a communica- tion respecting the plant, and where it was to be found. He accordingly did so in July 1854. He also sent a specimen of the Holy Grass to Professor Balfour of Edinburgh. We must here anticipate ; and insert the paper which Dick prepared for the Botanical Society, twenty years after the plant had been found. The paper runs as follows : " About ten minutes' walk from the town of Thurso there is, by the river-side, a farm-house known by the name of the Bleachfield, opposite to which, on the eastern bank of the river, there is a precipitous section of boulder clay ; opposite to the clay cliff, and fringing the edge of the stream. Any botanist can, in the last week of the month of May, or in the first and second weeks of June, gather 50 or 100 specimens of Hierochloe borealis. Passing upwards along the river bank, and at no great distance, there is another clay cliff, where a few hundreds of Hierochloe may likewise be got. It also fringes the THE MOONWORT. 75 edge of the river. But the plant must be looked for at the time indicated ; for by the third week of June the beauty of Hierochloe has passed away, and by the first of July the herbage has become so rank that the Holy Grass, now ripe, and turned of a silky brown, and is com- pletely hidden from view. Farther up, between Giese and a section of boulder clay a little below Todholes, the plant may likewise be picked in hundreds. Hiero- chloe has never failed to appear in these localities during the last twenty years."* The Eoyal Botanical Society afterwards sent Dick a special vote of thanks for his paper, and also for the specimen of the plant which he had sent for the Bota- nical Gardens. To return to his botanical wanderings. His sister, who lived at Haddington, was very delicate, and he often tried to amuse her with the descriptions of his walks in the country. In the beginning of July he writes to her as follows : " I have had two walks one of five miles, the other of ten miles. The five miles' walk was to see a fern called the Moonwort. It grows in abundance in a spot not far away. I shall never forget the strange wonder with which I first saw it. So I again walked off to the locality, where I knew it grew in all its glory. The season has been very dry here, and the fern has not attained its usual height. Nevertheless I found it. During my journey I saw much to admire. * Annals of Natural History, October 1854. Botanical Society of Edinburgh. 76 THE STORKSBILL. CHAP, vn, "My ten miles' walk I had yesterday evening. It was fearfully warm. The sky was full of fire, but it did not rain. There were great black mountains of clouds in the air. It was a dead calm, with not a breath of air. I was told that I must not go out, for it would be a downpour before long. But ' he that will to Cupar maun to Cupar.' My imagination told me of beautiful geraniums (Storksbill), which I longed to see. Off I went ! The clouds were in motion, but without wind. It was terribly sultry. After a long perspiring walk I arrived at my journey's end a small precipice, lined with plants. " I was now at home intensely at home. The pre- cipice was not in length a stone's throw. It was only about twenty feet in height. But there I found many most interesting plants. There were a few of the Trembling Poj)lar trees, about four feet high. There were Eoses and Willow Herb in flower (Epilobium angustifolium, E. montanum, and E. quadrangulum). There was Ardbis hirsuta, a plant I never get in Caith- ness but here : Stone Bramble, Common Sanicle, Carices, and Butterworts in scores. And in the crevices of the crags ferns Male ferns and Lady ferns Black Spleenworts, Maiden-hair Spleenworts, and many other plants. Among the rest I found plenty of Rough Brome Grass a grass I saw alive for the first time alive by scores. So here was my reward ! Well, I am increasing in knowledge, if not in wisdom. I hope to get up at one o'clock to- morrow morning." A little later in the month he says " This being one WALKS FOR FERNS. of my rambling days I did not leave Thurso until the postman had gone round with his letters between one and two o'clock. Of course I could not go far to-day. But there is a fern growing about a mile and a half off, which I should like to see once more. I once thought the fern to be very rare, not having met with it in all my rambles, except at the foot of the hill of Morven, in the extreme south of the county. Then I found the same fern about four or five miles from this, eastward of the Fairies' Hill (Lysa) ; afterwards about a mile and a half out of Thurso ; and then about three-quarters of a mile eastward of the town. The search for plants is amusing ; and when I come unexpectedly upon plants in a spot which I had before minutely searched, I wonder where my eyes had been all the time." " On Saturday last," he says in another letter to his sister, " I got up in the morning at three, worked until mid- day, and then I set off on a journey of nine miles to gather a specimen of a plant. Before I started I took off my shoes and dipped my feet, stockings and all, into a basin of water. I then tied my shoes on and set off. When I had gone six miles I came to a burn ' roarin' fou,' through which I walked ankle-deep. Fifteen minutes later I walked through another burn, and then through another and another burn four burns in all. " I pulled the plant and returned homewards. My route lay across Dunnet sands. The tide was ebbing. I kept close by the waves. As they rolled in, in long breakers, they went far up the sands. For about three- quarters of an hour I walked ankle-deep in salt water. 78 WALK TO DORERY. CHAP. vn. After leaving the shore I had six miles to walk. I reached home at eight in the evening with my plant, having walked eighteen miles in four hours and forty minutes." On another afternoon in July he goes to the Dorery hills. "I had a ramble," he said, "on Saturday last, after my day's work was over. While on my way I found in a quarry, at a loch, a fossil fish snout or two, and some plants. I got to the hills, about ten miles off, and examined ferns and roses. I had a grand view of the Sutherland hills. I stood in a sheltered nook, and gazed at the sunlight shining far over the distant mountains. I never forget any of these moments. I turned aside this morning just to gaze upon the moon. It was about two o'clock in the morning. All was still, solemn, and impressive." The road to the Dorery hills lies through a bare and slightly undulating country. The fields are sepa- rated from the road by fences of Caithness flag. On either side you observe here and there mounds of green earth, underneath which are said to be the so-called Picts' Houses. After the cultivated fields, come the moors quiet, solitary, and sublime. After the moors you reach the heathery hills. The highest of the hills is called Ben Dorery. There is a cleft between the two principal hills, and at the farther side of the main hill is a hollow, surrounded by projec- tions of slaty rock, in which Dick would sit down, and look with delight on the prospect before him. In the far- reaching plain below there was nothing but heather DORERY HILL. 79 moor, and moss, in the midst of which twelve lochs might be seen glittering in the sunshine, with the Sutherland hills far in the distance. The scene is lonely and solitary. Not a house is to be seen. Not a sound is to be heard, excepting the shot of a sportsman during the grouse season. Below the hill, is Loch Shurery, quietly sleeping in the sunshine. THE DOS3RY HILLS. Rising the hill and looking north, you see the flat county of Caithness, with moors and lochs in the toreground, and beyond them the flag-fenced fields in the distance. The Dorery hills were attractive to Dick, not only because of the solitary scenery, but because they were lull of ferns of many sorts, togetliei with many of the plants and grasses of which he was constantly in search. 80 DICK'S FERNERY. CHAP. vii. Dick had another special fernery at Achavaristil, under the Reay hills, about ten miles from Thurso. It was nearly opposite Sir Robert Sinclair's shooting-lodge. It was a sheltered place, where ferns grew in beauty. Dick kept the place an entire secret. For a long time, no one obtained access to it. No one knew of it. He transplanted ferns from all parts of the county, that they might grow and spread there long after he was dead. But alas, some mischievous person found out the place, and pulled up the " weeds." What a bitter day that was for Robert Dick ! CHAPTEE VIH DUNNET HEAD. THE coast scenery, east and west of Thurso, is very grand. On the one side it rises into Holborn Head, and on the other into the long perpendicular rocks of Dunnet Head. Holborn means Hell's child, from Holla the goddess of hell, and biorn child. Many a ship has been dashed against the rocks there. This has probably originated the peculiar name of the headland. When a ship in the North Atlantic is caught by a storm, and the wind blows violently from the west, she is driven towards the rockbound coast of the Hebrides. If she can weather the Butt of Lewis, she is driven towards the gigantic rocks of Cape Wrath, which extend for about fifty miles towards Holborn Head. If she can manage, by backing, to enter Scrabster Eoads, she is safe. If not, she is driven upon the rocks, and utterly destroyed ship, men, and cargo. The faces of the rocks are hollowed into gaping caverns, where the waves thunder in, and roll along the gyoes far inland. The leap of the waves is only exceeded by their rebound seaward again. They rush up the face of the rock like a pack of hounds, and spread them- selves along the summit in blinding showers of spray 82 SCRABSTER ROADS. CHAP. vm. As you stand upon the top of the rocks in fine weather, they seem to precipitate themselves into the sea, in many cases overhanging the water. Inside of Holborn Head is Scrabster Eoads. Many ships ride at anchor there while the wind blows hard from the west. They are well protected by the head- land, which juts out towards the north-east. Scrabster Harbour is also comparatively safe. But when the wind blows from the north or north- east, the ships riding at anchor there are in great danger. The waves come in with great force. They come hissing along with their fleece of froth, and break with violent force upon the shore. They rebound again, dragging the pebbles under them with a rattle, and to quote the words of Hardy are like " a beast gnawing bones." After one of these storms, Dick went down to the sea-shore to ascertain whether any of the secrets of Nature had been laid bare. " We have had a terrible storm here," he says ; " such a force of wind that I have never felt the like, so terribly strong and continuous. It has caused great disaster to the shipping. The storm fairly whipped six vessels out of Scrabster Eoads, and dashed them ashore to ruin. " When the wind abated, I went down to the shore, and found a piece of old land strewed here and there with prostrate hazel stems. I picked out of the clay five nuts. How long it is since they grew I know not, but it must have been ages ago. Perhaps geologists would say that they grew when Britain stood thirty feet higher than it does now. But that is all conjecture. Certainly SHIPWRECKS. 83 the land along our shores had once a very different appearance." On another occasion he says "The wind to-day blows fearfully hard. A large ship, with seventeen men on board, is ashore at Ham, thirteen miles off. About mid-day we expected a ship ashore here. Unless the wind abates, I should not be surprised if others came ashore to-morrow. The wind is howling like mad, and roaring like thunder over the town." Dunnet Head, north-east of Thurso, was one of Dick's favourite haunts. It was a long walk to the lighthouse, which fronts the Pentland Firth. But he often wan- dered to it, and descended the headland to the sea by paths known only to himself. The perpendicular rocks which surround the head, average about two hundred feet high; but at the northern end, which forms the northernmost point of Scotland, the rock rises three hundred feet above sea level ; and from the summit of the contiguous eminence, the height above the sea is more than four hundred feet. Dunnet Head forms a peninsula, extending from the village of Dunnet on the south to the village of Brough on the north. From these points it extends northward. The peninsula contains about three thousand acres of uncultivated moor, with no fewer than ten small lochs or tarns on its summit. In winter time the lochs are crowded with swans, geese, ducks, and northern seafowl. Most of the birds summer in Greenland, and winter on Dunnet Head. This immense rampart of rocky headland runs along 84 D WARWICK HEAD. the northern shore of Dunnet Bay, by Dwarwick Head, in an easterly direction. Then turning sharp round to the north by Eough Head, the rocks wend northwards, then slightly eastwards, until you find yourself under Easter Head, where the lighthouse is erected. This is the highest point of the cliffs. They then extend to the DWARWICK HEAD. south-east, and afterwards towards the south, ending at the village of Brough. In fine or even rough weather, when the wind is east- erly, a yachting trip under the cliffs is full of interest. In Dunnet Bay the sea is quiet, being protected from the east by the high grounds of the peninsula. Dwar- wick Head forms a singular headland, the strata dipping slightly towards the sea. Between this and Eough CHAP. vni. DUNNET LIGHTHOUSE. 85 Head is a wick or bay, in which ships find safe shelter an old retreat of the Vikingers. Eough Head is a bold headland. Numerous boulders are strewn at the bottom of the cliff. There are points near Dwarwick Head and Rough Head, where an approach to the sands is possible, though, in some places, it is rather precipitous. There are numerous gyoes along the headland, worn out into inland caves by the powerful washings of the sea. There is one near Dwarwick which penetrates far inland. When the sea is rough, and drives in from the west, the sea dashes up far inland, and blows through the opening like a whale, throwing abroad sheets of spray. The precipices gradually rise. In certain places the rocks seem to have slipped away towards the bottom, and left steep slopes overgrown by ferns. There are numer- ous wild birds among the cliffs. Cormorants are seen winging their solitary way towards the north. Deep caves appear in the face of the rock ; with here and there a recent slip from the summit to the sea, where the stones lie in a rough slope. The red sandstone of the rocks looks so clear, so solid, and so near at hand, that it might be thought they were only a gunshot distant, though they are a mile and a quarter away. And now we are under the lighthouse, where the strata are nearly level. The precipice here is some three hundred feet high. The lighthouse is on the crest of the rocks, only about thirty feet from the precipice. It is the highest lighthouse in Scotland. The height of the lantern above the highest spring tides is 346 feet, FORCE OF THE SEA. and the light is seen twenty-three miles off, on either side of Dunnet Head. Even here there seem to have been recent slips, for there are long slopes of rock at the bottom overgrown with ferns and greenery. The sea is constantly washing and grinding away the red sandstone and slates, so that, in course of time, the lighthouse will have to be removed farther inland. Notwithstanding the height of the cliffs, the sea, when driving strongly from the west, rushes right up the face of the rocks, and dashes over the lighthouse, sometimes breaking the glass with the stones which it carries with it. Such is the prodigious force of the wind and the sea united, that the very rock itself seems to tremble, while the lighthouse shakes from top to bottom. We are now in the Pentland Firth, and the waves are rolling strong ^from the eastward. The wind and the waters dash about the little ship, and she tacks and bears round under the shelter of the headland. But not before her decks have been well drenched by the billows. She has now to make headway against the tide, which is rushing into the Pentland Firth at the rate of some ten miles an hour. At last, retracing her pathway under the rocks, Eough Head is passed ; a calm comes on ; the ship makes a tack across the bay ; and at length Dwarwick Head is passed, and the buoyant little yacht makes her way into Castletown harbour, from whence she set out. We have thought it necessary to give this account of Dunnet Head, because it was so often the scene of Robert Dick's explorations. Sometimes also, Hugh DUN'XET HEAD : FROM THK EAST. CHAP. vin. TRIP TO DUNNET. 87 Miller accompanied him in his researches after the Old Eed Sandstone, which is found on both sides of the head- land. This will afterwards be found in the course of the narrative. In the course of one of his letters to his sister, Dick thus describes one of his journeys to Dunnet Head. It was made in April, while the weather was still very wild: "Determined not to be beat, I waited over snow, hail, frost, and rain, until I could set out. Then I had my ramble. It was a fine morning, but after I had set out it began to rain. It blew and rained for five miles. I saw little beyond a bare country. The fields were red, and the grass by the road-side was withered and brown. All was of a sad, desolate appearance. I was walking in an easterly direction, and the wind was blowing south-west. To fend me from the rain, I turned my face northerly, and saw only a tossing sea, and the Orkney hills overspread with snow. I passed through the mile- long village of Castletown, and there I saw trees, yes, most respectable trees !* " On the top of a stone wall to the right I saw some tufts of moss. I went to the moss and looked. It was all in fruit. I think it was Hypnum popuieum. I had seen it before. I crossed burn after burn, and then the * There are not only trees but woods about Mr. Trail's seat at Castlehill. There is a hollow valley there, along the river Duran, which has been beautifully planted. The place is well protected from the north and east winds, and the trees grow to as fine dimensions as they do in the south of England. But this is the only wood in the north of Caithness. DUNNE T CLIFFS. long dreary sands of Dunnet lay before me blank and bare, or tossed into fantastic hillocks. The sand was blowing before the wind. The waves were thundering along the shore. " I saw a man breaking sandstone boulders. He little thought of what he was doing, or of the time when ice went grinding along the surface of the stone he was hammering. No : he was building a cottage, and the stone was only a stone to him, and nothing more. " Passing on, I left all human habitations behind, and had only heather, heather, before me. The heather was brown and burnt-like, so severe had been the weather during the past winter. As I passed on, I found a cocoon of the Emperor Moth sticking on a piece of heather. I was next brought to a stop by some crimson- tipped lichens moss cups. They were taller than any specimens I had seen before, but they were under shelter. "After crossing another burn, and striding through heather only ankle deep, I found myself on the edge of the precipitous cliffs of Dunnet Head. Before I de- scended down their front I looked around. Orkney seemed quite near, with the snow-wreaths on its hills. The waves of the Pentland Firth were rolling away westerly. " Down I went ! down ! It was at that place only about 100 feet deep. When I reached the foot of the cliff, I gazed upward in wonder and admiration, full of intense curiosity to see the various layers of sand for such it once was. It is not every day that one stands at the foot of such a cliff. CHAP. vin. FERNS AT DUNNET. 89 "I moved westwards. I passed along delighted. The scene was grand and unusually striking. I came at length to a narrow fissure, up which I forced my way in quest of Ferns. Yes, Ferns ! Ferns grow green on Dunnet Cliffs all the year round. In fact, Dunnet Head is a forest of ferns. It was the Sea Spleenwort that I wanted, and sure enough I found it growing green in all its glory. I gathered a few, and left the rest. " Retracing my steps, I ascended the cliff. It then began to rain, and it rained nearly all the way home." Dick often descended the cliff, sometimes to gather ferns, and at other times to inspect the geological conditions of the rocks. One day he went down the face of the headland a little to the west of the light- house. He went searching about among the rocks and clefts, finding many new things to wonder at. But he completely forgot the lapse of time. Looking round, he found that the tide had risen and completely overflowed the path among the rocks by which he had come. On one side was the precipice, on the other was the sea, coming in higher and higher at every wave. He had no alternative but to go onward, for the sands were still dry in front of him. At length he discovered a portion of the headland which he thought might be attempted, and he succeeded, with much difficulty and danger, in reach- ing the summit of the cliff. In fine weather, when the billows are asleep and the waters merely lave the base of the cliffs, pleasure parties sometimes set sail from Thurso, and, when the tide is low, they land on the sands under Dunnet Head. On one 90 DUNNET SANDS. CHAP. vm. occasion, Dr. Smith and a party who had just landed from their boat, found to their amazement that Dick was there before them. He seemed to have got there by miracle. But no ; he had merely come down the rocks by a path known only to himself, for assuredly nobody else would have risked his life in so perilous a descent. Dr. Smith asked him to return with his party in the boat. No ! he would ascend the rocks by the path down which he had come. Besides, he never accepted any accommodation of this sort while on his journeys. His skin was in a state of perspiration, which he desired to maintain. If he took a seat in a boat or in a road conveyance, with his wet feet, he was sure to get chilled, and the result was a severe cold. Hence he strode back to Thurso by the heather, the sands, and the road, as he had come. On one occasion Dick describes the geology of Dunnet Head. It is during the month of June that he undertakes his journey. He has already reached Dunnet sands, which are about seven miles by road from Thurso. The description is best given in Dick's own words : "Dunnet sands are a long and a weary trail in a warm day in June, when the dark thunder-clouds creep overhsad, when not a breath of air stirs, and all is still and motionless, save the dull, sluggish fall, at solemn pauses, of the incoming and retreating waves on the burning sands, or the humming of the overjoyed flies feeding on the dead fish cast up by the tide ; when the GEOLOGISING. 91 cattle from the benty links have come down towards the sea, where they stand knee-deep in it, stooping and eyeing it wistfully, but yet unable to drink ; when the parched sands stretch away in the distance, the heated air nickering upwards like the breath of a furnace ! " I look up, and implore the ' all-conquering sun to intermit his wrath.' He only continues to shine out stronger and fiercer ; till at last, faint and exhausted. I throw myself down, and drink out of the burn which flows across the sands, careless of the consequences. Your very wise people may say what they please about the consequences of imbibing cold water when over- heated, but I have never found any harm, but much good to be the result, and in no case more than in taking this drink out of the burn as I crossed the sands towards Dunnet. " Refreshed and invigorated, I rose and pursued my way. Not long after, I had the pleasure of striking iny first hearty blow on the yellow stones which crop out through the unconsolidated beach. I examine and search for organic remains. But no. Again and again my efforts are renewed, and still the answer is, No. " Passing on along the foot of the cliffs now yellow- ish, then reddish now thin and slaty-like, then in thick solid beds I go rambling along. " ' Owre mony a weary ledge he limpit, An' aye the tither stane he thumpit ; ' but thumped in vain. Oh for one scale ! But no ; no organisms; not one, though you upturned the whole stupendous accumulation of quartzy sand, which rears 92 DESCENDING THE CLIFFS. CHAP. vin. its lofty and weathered front to the wasting waves and " We have chosen the right time, when the tide is at the lowest. Consequently we are enabled to move along at the foot of the cliffs, which otherwise would be impassable. We actively and untiringly explore, but with no success; and are at last so wearied that we clamber up to the top of the headland by a rugged sort of footpath, and, moving along the edge of the precipice, we make through the grass and heather for the crags immediately facing the Western Ocean. How strange to find, as we move along, a white butterfly or two flitting about, a solitary mason wasp, and a sparrow- hawk looking out for prey, the sun all the while beating down upon us. " It is possible to get down the western face of the rugged cliffs of Dunnet Head. We got down, and what do we find ? ibe sight is worth all the toil of walk- ing to see it. Immense masses of sandstone, fallen from the cliffs overhead, skirt the mighty wall. The masses lie in rude confusion. Applying the hammer to them, no remains of fish or quadruped are to be found, but pieces of quartz, clay pebbles of a reddish brown, and in some places balls of sulphur-yellow clay, as big as a man's fist. Here and there are large patches of some- thing like rusty sheet-iron, which would almost make one fancy that they were the remains of some Antedilu- vian Frying-pan that had been swept to sea and buried there. " There is very little real red sandstone at Punnet CHAP. vin. THE SANDSTONE BEDS. 93 Head. By far the greatest bulk is what I take to be a yellow quartzose sand. In one place, and in one place only, is the sand in any way red. In crossing Dunnet sands we had not failed to notice little stones, standing out here and there in the sand, left by the retiring tide, and great was my surprise to find the same appearances here. In some places, where the boulders are a little asunder, the exact beds of the strata are to be seen, walked over, handled, and hammered. I had seen sand- stone beds with here and there a pebble, but they nevei struck my imagination so forcibly as now, when I was down upon my knees and busied in the work of extrac- tion. " What a vast gathering of sand ! I was forced to exclaim. Where did it all come from ? How long did it take to pile up this heap in the silent depths of the sea ? How long ? How many years ? These are perti- nent questions, questions which enter one's very soul. Then man feels instinctively his own littleness, and his utter inadequacy to solve even the simplest of his questionings. " But however amazed he may feel at this vast pile of sand, it was at one time unquestionably much greater. Looking across to the Orkneys, immediately opposite, the spectator cannot fail to remark that they are of the same material. Then, turning from the Orkneys to Hoi- born Head, where a strong sea now rolls, one cannot help looking back, and we are led to picture the time when there was no sea between them, but only sandstone beds, stretching continuously from shore to shore ! 94 DUNNET HEAD SUBMERGED ! CHAP. vm. " The beds have been burst through by the ocean, and where dry land once was, the grampus now rolls, and the tall ship speeds on her way to the farthest ends of the earth. Amazing change ! " ' Art, empire, earth itself, to change is doomed ; Earthquakes have raised to heaven the humble vale, And gulphs the mountain's mighty mass entombed ; And where the Atlantic rolled wide continents have bloomed.' " Who told Beattie this ? It seems to prove Lyell's theory of the sameness of ancient and existing causes for geological changes in the earth's surface. And the change is still going on ; and ' come it will, the day decreed by fate,' when not a vestige of the sandstone of Dunnet Head will be found above the encroaching ocean. " What induces me to think so is this : 1st, Dunnet Bay does not, in my opinion, owe its existence to a fault, but has been literally hammered out by the force of the Atlantic waves. The sandy links are the broken remains, in part, of the dispersed strata; and were they now to become solidified, they would be found as rich in fossil remains as the present beds are barren. 2d, The ocean tempests are telling surely on the western face of the beds of Dunnet Head; and time alone is wanted to effect their ruin. 3d, The beds on the south, at Brough, are in some places in a mouldering, crumb- ling state, and the sea will ultimately effect a junction with the upper end of Dunnet Bay. Dunnet Head will for some time be an island ; but it will ultimately be CHAP. viii. HA VEN OF B ROUGH. 95 blotted out of existence altogether. There is a prophecy for you ! " I remember once getting up, towards the end of harvest, while the blue canopy above was still adorned and enriched with innumerable stars. I was gaily crossing Dunnet sands in the first peep of day, when I made directly across the peninsula for the stupendous cliff immediately westward of the little haven of Brough. I found that the tide did not retire far from the coast, but rose and fell close to the cliffs, wetting and allowing to dry the big stones at the base of the precipice. " The cliff, under which I rested for a time, was about 150 feet high. It seemed sound and hard. The morn- ing sun rose in beauty. I hammered away, and kept moving down upon the hamlet of Brough. There I found the cliffs in sad decay ; in fact, they were a sloping mass of rotten materials. A little out to sea there is a ledge of what was once red sandstone. It is a mouldering hint of what is to come. It is 50 feet in height, and rests upon slate. " I had made this long journey in the hope of find- ing some very fine organisms where the slate cropped out from beneath the sand. I found a few fish scales and droppings, but no fossils ; and sounded a retreat, very much chagrined at having to return home almost empty-handed. " There is a loch or two near Dunnet Head. There is one on the top of the hill. It is a quiet secluded spot, a place of great attraction for wild swans, geese, and ducks, during their autumnal migration, when winging 96 THE HALIE LOCH. CHAP. vnr. their way southward. There is another loch lower down, famed for its miraculous cures. It is quite common for mothers to carry their sickly children there on the first Monday morning of a Wraith; and, going round the puddle three times, they dip in the chick at the end of each revolution. The children have sometimes returned home cured. So they say. " I remember a sort of cure. A poor woman took thither a child who could neither sit, stand, walk, nor talk. She performed the customary observances, and returned amidst much derision. But lo! a marked change took place in the child. He gained strength, walked, and learned to speak. He often came to my back premises, and called out : ' Bakie, bakie, gie's a lopie;' but still he was very ancient-looking in the face. About two or three years after he died of gravel. So that the cure, whateyer it might be, was not permanent." The piece of water referred to by Dick is Dunnet Loch, or the Halie Loch, not far from the village of Dunnet. It was once supposed to possess great healing virtues. People came from all parts of Caithness and the Orkneys, to be cured by the waters. The patient had to walk round the loch, or, if not able to walk, he was carried round it. He washed his hands and feet in the loch, and then threw a piece of money into it. He had to do this early in the morning, and must be out of sight before sunrise. There was in ancient times a Roman Catholic chapel dedicated to St. John at the east end of the loch. Some say that the alleged healing virtues of the waters were converted into a source of THE " WITCH HAG: 97 pecuniary emolument by the priests. The loch is merely a collection of water dropped from the clouds, and possesses no healing or other qualities, except those of rain water. Among the superstitions of Caithness, the Swallow is called " Witch hag." They say that if a swallow flies under the arm of a person, it immediately becomes paralysed. Is it because of the same superstition, that in some parts of England the innocent Swift is called " the Devilin " ? DISTANT VIEW OF DUNNET HEAD: FROM BARROGILL CASTLE. CHAPTER IX. GEOLOGY DISCOVERY OF A HOLOPTYCHIUS. ROBERT DICK had now been engaged for many years in studying the wonderful aspects of Nature in the North. Caithness was not too wild or dreary for him. The shells on the sea-shore, the grasses along the river-sides, the mosses growing on the boulders, the ferns abounding in Dunnet cliffs, were all full of interest. And now he proceeded to probe the ground under his feet. He had long had a taste for geology. While gather- ing his botanical specimens he had often found fossil fishes in the slaty rocks. He first observed them in 1835, a few years after he had settled at Thurso. At first they excited his wonder ; then his surprise, for dis- tinguished geologists had asserted that no fossil remains were to be found in the Scotch Highlands.* But here they were under his own eyes ! Why should he not explore * The Rev. W. D. Conybeare and William Phillips, Esq., in their Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales (1822), said, "A cir- cumstance cannot fail to have struck the observer during the course of his researches, which opens to his view a far more extensive and interesting field of his inquiry with regard to the relations of these rocks to the general revolutions of nature ; for he will have found in many of these beds spoils of the vegetable and animal kingdom im- bedded, particularly the remains of marine zoophytes and shells, often CHAP. ix. GEOLOGY OF CAITHNESS. 99 them ? Why should he not study them, and verify the facts for himself? Among the first books that he bought was Mantell's Wonders of Geology. This revealed to him quite a new world the world of wonders at his feet. He after- wards bought Dr. Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise. This book also greatly excited his imagination. But there was nothing in it about the fossils of Caithness. He next borrowed a book from Sir George Sinclair, contain- ing a journal of Mr. Bushby's travels through Caithness. He made copious extracts from it, and endeavoured to verify the facts therein stated. Mr. Bushby's object seems to have been to discover whether Caithness contained any metalliferous ores. He also bored largely for shell marl, with the object of mixing it with the mosses, and thus producing culti- vable land. Bushby was not a geologist, and, in his search for what was valuable, he overlooked the flags, the fossils, the old red sandstone, and many of the most interesting facts in the geology of Caithness. It was not until the appearance of Hugh Miller's publications that Dick's mind was set in the right direction. In the month of September 1840, there appeared in the Witness newspaper the first of a series of articles under the title of " The Old Eed Sandstone." in such abundance as to constitute nearly the entire mass of the parti- cular strata. ... In some counties, he will perceive, none of these remains occur for instance, in Cornwall and the Scotch Highlands ; in others (as in the south-eastern counties of England) not a well can be sunk, or a pit opened, without presenting them in abundance." 100 HUGH MILLER. The articles were collected and published in the form of a book in the following year. Dick purchased a copy, and read it with great interest. He immediately set to work to investigate the geology of Caithness. He again wandered over it from one end of the county to the other. But his best findings were near Thurso. Along the coast there, he had already found fish bones, fish heads, fish snouts, fish scales, sufficient to freight a large ship. But he had never yet found an entire specimen. At last he succeeded ; and then began his correspondence with Hugh Miller. He did not know Hugh Miller ; so that he addressed him through an intermediate friend, Mr. Alexander Sinclair. The letter is dated the 10th of March 1845. Dick intimated that he was about to send off from Thurso to Leith, by the " Union " steamer, a number of fossil bones fpr Mr. Miller. He said, " If Mr. M. has seen anything similar to the piece No. 1, with the tri- angular knob, all my dreams of astonishing the geological world by something new are in a measure at an end ; for 'tis not alone the size of the pieces that I value, but their singularity. " An acquaintance here has suggested that the piece I have attempted to delineate was the plate that covered the lower half of the Coccosteus ; but in this I find it hard to agree, for I have two lower halves of Coccosteus tilted over on their backs, and they are not at all like this strange piece. The lower half of these pieces has no triangular knob at the upper end in the centre of the plate. Nor will it do, in my opinion, to say that per* CHAP. ix. A HOLOPTYCHIUS FOUND. 101 haps the knob and the rib-like processes were separated from the centre plate, and washed away before it was buried, for, to my certain knowledge, they were originally solidly united in one piece, and the knob could not even have been wrenched away without leaving a mark " Besides, in these two pieces of Coccosteus cuspidatus alluded to, there is a knot-like bone, with a long stalk at the lower end, and nothing of the same kind in the piece now sent. If this piece, strange as it is, was in reality the lower half of a Coccosteus, Mr. Miller must correct his description when he speaks of it as one plate or piece, save the two small side pieces that ' fill up the angle.' Mr. Miller knows what I mean. " I am pretty confident that I have got something new to geologists, and for this reason rude as my sketch of the fish jaws is Mr. Miller must know them to be the remains of a Holoptychius." Five days later (15th March) Mr. Dick again writes to Mr. Miller : " Not a moment shall be lost in sending you by steamer those curious Old Bones. At the same time, I cannot send you one of them the largest piece as it was found ; but I will send you a cast of it a stucco likeness of what the huge buckler was when it lay in the bed of the rock, after I had brought it to light after its long entombment." The fossil fish found by Dick was indeed a discovery. The frontal plates of the Holoptychius measured full sixteen inches across, and from the nape of the neck to a little above the place of the eyes, full eighteen ; while a single plate belonging to the lower part of the head 102 BEGINNINGS OF GEOLOGY. CHAP. ix. measured thirteen and a half inches by seven and a half. Dick was rejoiced to find that Hugh Miller valued the discovery so much, and that he complimented him on the results of his laborious investigations. In the same letter in which he communicated the finding of the fossil Holoptychius, Dick described to Hugh Miller the beginning of his geological studies. He had been long wandering about Caithness, making general inquiries, gathering fossils, finding old sea- beaches, and watching the grindings made by icebergs on the rocks j but now he had begun to excavate the rocks, and endeavoured to dissect them so far as he could. " I never," he said, " wielded the hammer and chisel until last spring March 1844; and the laying bare of the large fossil (of which I send you the cast, and the remaining fossjls) was one of my first exploits. It was about the vernal equinox. The wind blew off the land. A merry sea tripped through the Pentland Firth. The tide was about full. The waves came dashing in on the rocky shore, in long rolling billows, scattering in spin- drift. "I had laid the large plate bare, and was resting in mute astonishment at the size of the fossil for I measured it with the handle of the hammer, and found it fully eighteen inches in length when I was roused from my reverie by the waves dashing against my feet. The tide was now coming in ! What was I to do ? To raise it, stone and all, was impossible, and I feared that it might be damaged or taken away if I left it until CHAP. ix. RAISES THE FOSSIL. 103 next evening. There was no time to deliberate. The tide was nearly up to the stone. "I then attempted to lift it whole out of its bed, little thinking, in my ignorance, of the extremely brittle nature of petrified bones. Alas ! the bone broke across ! I gave a gasp, and cried ' Oh !' But I set to work and lifted the rest out, and put the whole in my handker- chief. When I reached home they were a mass of broken debris. I managed, however, to put the bits together again, and of these I send you the plaster cast. " What was it ? was it really a Coccosteus, six feet long including the tail ? What do you think I imagined it to be ? Nothing more nor less than a gigantic King Crab ! wanting the tail ; eighteen inches one way and sixteen inches the other. I wandered through Buck- land in vain, and then believed that it was the upper piece of a Trilobite. But the ' Old Eed ' dissipated all these fancies. " I have a piece or two of fossil bone that would puzzle Agassiz himself. They shall all be sent you. Whether you engrave any of them or not, you are on no account to return them. They would never see the light with me. " I have taken note of what you say, and will endea- vour to comply with your kind suggestions that I should make further searches. ... I have been along the shore once or twice already, and know of a job or two one of them rather promising a bone, as long as my finger, is standing out of an impure bituminous limestone, but 104 MILLERS ACKNOWLEDGMENT. CHAP. ix. what the bone may be can only be known when it is dug out." Hugh Miller afterwards refers to the circumstances under which Dick sent him the Holoptychius. He says, " I do not know what the savans of Eussia have been doing for the last few years ; but mainly through the labours of an intelligent tradesman of Thurso, Mr. Kobert Dick one of those working men .of Scotland, of active curiosity and well-developed intellect, that give character and standing to the rest I am enabled to justify the classification and confirm the conjectures of Agassiz. Mr. Dick, after acquainting himself in the leisure hours of a laborious profession with the shells, insects, and plants of the northern locality in which he resides, had set himself to study its geology ; and with this view he procured a copy of the little treatise on the Old Red Sandstone, which was at that time, as Agassiz's monograph of the Old Eed fishes had not yet appeared, the only work specially devoted to the palaeontology of the system so largely developed in the neighbourhood of Thurso. With perhaps a single exception for the Thurso rocks do not yet seem to have yielded a Pterich- thys he succeeded in finding specimens, in a state of better or worse keeping, of all the various ichthyolites which I have described as peculiar to the Lower Old Eed Sandstone. He found, however, what I had not described, the remains of apparently a very gigantic ichthyolite; and, communicating with me through the medium of a common friend, he submitted to me, in the first instance, drawings of his new set of fossils ; and CHAP. ix. WORKING MEN AND GEOLOGY. 105 ultimately, as I could arrive at no satisfactory conclu- sion from the drawings, he with great liberality made over to me the fossils themselves." With reference to the manual labour by which Dick earned his bread, Hugh Miller says " There is no work- ing man, if he be a person of intelligence and informa- tion, however unlearned, in the vulgar acceptation of the phrase, who may not derive as much pleasure and enlargement of ideas from the study of geology, and acquaint himself as minutely with its truths, as if he were possessed of all the learning of Bentley." * In a subsequent letter, written during the same month, Dick says "We have gentlemen-geologists here; but not one of them though they have been many years in the pursuit have a single piece similar to those I send you. They have repeatedly gone down to Thurso East, and returned empty. And why ? For this simple reason, that they were afraid to fylef their trousers !" Certainly, Dick discovered and elucidated many things which lie hidden from the eyes of common men. His indefatigable industry in the cause of science enabled him to accomplish much more than thousands of men furnished with the best available education, and with ample means and time at their command, had been able to achieve. His was only another case of " the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties." In a future letter to Hugh Miller he said" I got your enclosed extract. I will proceed to make you a * Footprints of the Creator, pp. 25, 26 ; Ed. 1876. t Dirty. 106 THE SCALDING THEORY. CHAP. ix. map of Caithness. As to the dip of the strata, the geologists are right; but as to the localities of the fossils, they are greenhorns. I have traced all the shores, from Ratter on the east to Drumholiater on the west. Some beds are perfect Museums of fish heads and bones. I will send you some coprolites of a size that will make you doubt if they really have been voided by fish. Sometimes I think larger animals must have in- habited the sea of the Old Eed Sandstone." On the 8th of April he writes " In your outlines of Mr. Eose's lecture, in your last paper [the Witness], I find a more rational view of the probable use of the thick coverings of the animals of the Old Eed. Dr. Buckland's scalding theory always appeared to me to be ludicrous, and not in keeping with facts. Thus, in the same strata in which I found the very large plate, there were scattered ^promiscuously scales of the Osteolepis. You know how thick they are, and you now also know that some kind of animal was covered with mail in snme places nearly