From John OGroats to Lands End | Page 6

sea, and we were apprehensive lest we should collide with
some of them, but the course of the St. Magnus had evidently been
known and provided for by the fishermen.
We had a long talk with our friend about our journey north, and, as he
knew the country well, he was able to give us some useful information
and advice. He told us that if we left the boat at Wick and walked to
John o' Groat's from there, we should have to walk the same way back,
as there was only the one road, and if we wished to avoid going over
the same ground twice, he would advise us to remain on the St. Magnus
until she reached her destination, Lerwick, in the Shetland Islands, and
the cost by the boat would be very little more than to Wick. She would
only stay a short time at Lerwick, and then we could return in her to
Kirkwall, in the Orkney Islands. From that place we could walk across
the Mainland to Stromness, where we should find a small steamboat
which conveyed mails and passengers across the Pentland Firth to
Thurso in the north of Scotland, from which point John o' Groat's could
easily be reached, and, besides, we might never again have such a
favourable opportunity of seeing the fine rock scenery of those northern
islands.
[Illustration: WICK HARBOUR. From a photograph taken in 1867.]
We were delighted with his suggestion, and wrote a hurried letter home
advising our people there of this addition to our journey, and our friend
volunteered to post the letter for us at Wick. It was about six o'clock in
the morning when we neared that important fishery town and anchored
in the harbour, where we had to stay an hour or two to load and unload
cargo. Our friend the Scot had to leave us here, but we could not allow
him to depart without some kind of ceremony or other, and as the small

boat came in sight that was to carry him ashore, we decided to sing a
verse or two of "Auld Lang Syne" from his favourite poet Burns; but
my brother could not understand some of the words in one of the verses,
so he altered and anglicised them slightly:
An' here's a haund, my trusty friend, An' gie's a haund o' thine; We'll
tak' a cup o' kindness yet, For the sake o' auld lang syne.
Some of the other passengers joined in the singing, but we never
realised the full force of this verse until we heard it sung in its original
form by a party of Scots, who, when they came to this particular verse,
suited the action to the word by suddenly taking hold of each other's
hands, thereby forming a cross, and meanwhile beating time to the
music. Whether the cross so formed had any religious significance or
not, we did not know.
Our friend was a finely built and intelligent young man, and it was with
feelings of great regret that we bade him farewell and watched his
departure over the great waves, with the rather mournful presentiment
that we were being parted from him for ever!
Saturday, September 9th.
There were signs of a change in the weather as we left Wick, and the St.
Magnus rolled considerably; but occasionally we had a good view of
the precipitous rocks that lined the coast, many of them having been
christened by the sailors after the objects they represented, as seen from
the sea. The most prominent of these was a double-headed peak in
Caithness, which formed a remarkably perfect resemblance to the
breasts of a female giant with nipples complete, and this they had
named the "Maiden's Paps." Then there was the "Old Man of Hoy," and
other rocks that stood near the entrance to that terrible torrent of the sea,
the Pentland Firth; but, owing to the rolling of our ship, we were not in
a fit state either of mind or body to take much interest in them, and we
were very glad when we reached the shelter of the Orkney Islands and
entered the fine harbour of Kirkwall. Here we had to stay for a short
time, so we went ashore and obtained a substantial lunch at the
Temperance Hotel near the old cathedral, wrote a few letters, and at 3

p.m. rejoined the St. Magnus.
The sea had been quite rough enough previously, but it soon became
evident that it had been smooth compared with what followed, and
during the coming night we wished many times that our feet were once
more on terra firma. The rain descended, the wind increased in
violence, and the waves rolled high and broke over the ship, and we
were no longer allowed to