We asked
him how far we were from the town, and were delighted to hear it was
only about two miles away. It was after ten o'clock when we arrived at
Helmsdale, tired and footsore, but just in time to secure lodgings for
the night at the Commercial Inn.
(_Distance walked thirty miles_.)
_Thursday, September 21st._
Helmsdale was a pleasant little town inhabited chiefly by fishermen, but
a place of some importance, for it had recently become the northern
terminus of the railway. A book in the hotel, which we read while
waiting for breakfast, gave us some interesting information about the
road we had travelled along the night before, and from it we learned
that the distance between Berriedale and Helmsdale was nine and a half
miles, and that about half-way between these two places it passed the
Ord of Caithness at an elevation of 1,200 feet above the sea-level, an
"aclivity of granite past which no railway can be carried," and the
commencement of a long chain of mountains separating Caithness from
Sutherland.
Formerly the road was carried along the edge of a tremendous range of
precipices which overhung the sea in a fashion enough to frighten both
man and beast, and was considered the most dangerous road in Scotland,
so much so that when the Earl of Caithness or any other great landed
proprietor travelled that way a troop of their tenants from the borders
of Sutherland-shire assembled, and drew the carriage themselves across
the hill, a distance of two miles, quadrupeds not being considered safe
enough, as the least deviation would have resulted in a fall over the
rocks into the sea below.
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