1936 On the Continent

earth.
    At the end of Fife, is S T. A NDREWS (golf). And D UNDEE can be reached by car ferry.
    An easy run from Dundee is G LAMIS . From old haunted Glamis Castle came our present Scotch Queen.
The Queen’s Own Home
    The country all around Glamis is wooded and beautiful, and you can drive on to K IRRIEMUIR (Barrie’s “Thrums”), or if you like an old fishing industry, go to A RBROATH , where the fish-wives, in wide petticoats and with hugebaskets around them, still sell the “smokies” which they themselves carefully cure in underground pits.
    You can drive from Kirriemuir to B ALLATER , or from B LAIRGOWRIE to B ALMORAL , either of which road will take you into the Highlands and bring you back to the coast of A BERDEEN .
    From Aberdeen, that granite city of the North, you
can
take the main road to I NVERNESS , but I would rather you drove the more winding road through Tomintoul, but either way must bring you to Inverness, as that is the only crossing North, to D INGWALL . Beyond Dingwall, you are really in the wilds of Scotland, and roads are few, and the land impressive and barren.
So to the Wild North
    I want you to reach L AIRG . (If you can go round by Ullapool, on the west coast, a wide sweeping circle, for the other route is through the coastal plain, rather flat, by Bonar Bridge). Lairg is the very heart of Sutherland, and once there, you must take time to drive slowly, or better still, leave the car, and walk. There are good hotels at Overscaig and Laxford Bridge and Durness.
    This last piece of road has developed since I first knew it. Twenty years ago, I was snowed up in a shepherd’s hut on the hills beyond Laxford Bridge, and for a week or more, not a thing passed but the mail cart, floundering through to the Cape and the coastguards’ station.
    If you go safely and happily to hotels, you will not have these adventures, but if you walk you are happily safe to get lost sometime, so I’ll describe my shepherd’s hut, and may you be lucky enough to find such a haven.
In a Shepherd’s Home
    There were two downstairs rooms and one aloft. The outer door opened between the two downstairs rooms, under the staircase, which went aloft. In one lower room the shepherd’s pony was stabled. In the other, an open fire of peat, a spare bed (built in under the stairs), a table, a chair, padded with deerskin, a shelf with a Bible and a bottle of whisky and, along the ridge of the roof where the dark thatching met the white-washed walls, were rows of golden cured herrings, stuck in upright,stiffly, by their tails, so that their glassy eyes regarded us eerily like a hob-goblin audience; a kettle on a hook, a peat chopper fry-pan, and a few cups and saucers. That was all. Nothing else at all, except the hospitality which made that small stone hut a palace.
    I remember that week as one of the happiest of many Scotch holidays. Our welcome was so warm and kindly.
    We lived chiefly on herrings. In Scotch fashion, you must fry them dry, put a little salt in the pan, and split your herring open, and grill it till you can take the bones out, then with oat-cake and whisky, you’ve a meal fit for a prince or a hungry traveller.
The North Coast
    Beyond D URNESS , the furthest point to north-west is C APE W RATH . Ask at Durness if it is possible to get there, for sometimes the road is blocked in bad weather, but it’s a fine road along the cliff edge.
    At Durness, there’s good swimming in season, and a very fine cave. All the north coast is honey-combed with caves.
    Now east, to J OHN O’ G ROATS , and if you can, make the O RKNEYS and S HETLANDS . But once the autumn winds start whistling round, beware how you go off away on adventure up there, if you’ve an appointment, for the Islands may be weather-bound, though aeroplanes now take the mail regularly.
    In the Shetlands they don’t shear their sheep, they pluck them. It’s called “rooing.” The wool is lifted off at the end of the season when there comes to be a natural “shed” in the fleece. It is the finest, lightest wool, and the islanders work it into all manner of delicate warm gloves and jerseys and shawls.
The Shetland Islands Industry
    The coloured ones are very exciting, but if you want the oldest and most interesting specimens, look for the work that is shaded from white through every tone of grey and warm sepia brown to almost black—for that is made from the natural coloured wools. The black sheep can hold her own in Shetland!
    One of the