We had a fine view of Dunnet Head, which is said to be the Cape Orcas
mentioned by Diodorus Siculus, the geographer who lived in the time of
Julius Caesar, and of the lighthouse which had been built on the top of
it in 1832, standing quite near the edge of the cliff.
The light from the lantern, which was 346 feet above the highest spring
tide, could be seen at a distance of 23 miles; but even this was
sometimes obscured by the heavy storms from the west when the enormous
billows from the Atlantic dashed against the rugged face of the cliff
and threw up the spray as high as the lights of the building itself, so
that the stones they contained have been known to break the glass in the
building; such, indeed, was the prodigious combined force of the wind
and sea upon the headland, that the very rock seemed to tremble as if it
were affected by an earthquake.
While on the coach we had passed the hamlets of Murkle and Castlehill.
Between these two places was a sandy pool on the seashore to which a
curious legend was attached. The story goes that--
a young lad on one occasion discovered a mermaid bathing and by some
means or other got into conversation with her and rendered himself so
agreeable that a regular meeting at the same spot took place between
them.
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