1936 On the Continent

cold slightly salt butter in the middle.
Scotch Food
    In the North, forget you ever knew China tea, and appreciate Indian, hot and strong. Marmalade you will get, and oatcake, and you will be expected to go the day on two slices of oatcake and butter, with a flask of whisky. You will probably eat more eggs and bacon than you ever ate in your life before, and must get used to having boiled puddings for tea at five o’clock (and you’d better eat good and plenty, for you’ll get nothing till breakfast next morning).
    I remember a glorious meal in a small coastguards’ station in the North. The bare wooden table was scrubbed white with sea-salt, till it glistened like a Christmas card; on the table were a bowl of bread and a bowl of salt; beside, on the hearth, were an iron cauldron, full of meat, and another of potatoes, boiled and floury, and down in the hot peat ash simmered another pan which held a pudding. At each place was a plate, a basin, and one knife, fork and spoon.
A Good Meal
    We drew up the benches, and into the basins was ladled a big dipper of broth, in which bobbled a suet dumpling, a scoopful of meat, and the potatoes went into the big bowl in the centre of the table. We fell to, drinking the soup first and then laying down the spoons, and adding the potatoes to the savoury meat and dumpling which swam in the plates. It was good! After that, the pudding, on the other plate, with a big jug of cold milk. Nobody wasted time talking. Nobody hurried, we just ate a thoroughly satisfying meal.
    (Pardon me if I dwell so much on eatables; even thinking of those tramps in the Highlands gives me an appetite, and you can have the finest holiday yourself in this way.)
    I have recollections of venison and wild fowl, and jugged hare, and many another dish that sound, on paper,curiously rich and sophisticated, and there seem exactly right. By the way, get some Scotch woman to give you real “crowthie,” a white half curd, half cheese dish.
The Return Routes
    When you must return to the road again, reluctantly, you can either come back swiftly through Dingwall, Fort Augustus, Fort William, Ballachulish, and through Dumbarton, Glasgow, Carlisle, or skirting the Firth of Clyde, through Girvan, Ballantrae and back through Kirkcudbright. You will now have made a complete round of Scotland, comprising two distinct tours.
    If your time was precious, and you may have had to return across the Lowlands, making Stirling your highest point, you will only have seen a third of Scotland. So, if possible, extend your northern tour to include Skye and some of the islands. To reach S KYE , direct from Edinburgh, go through Stirling, Callander, Lochearnhead, Ballachulish, Invergarry, and out to the Kyle of Lochalsh. It’s a glorious good wide road. On the map, it looks a long way round,
but there is no other way
save by Mallaig, and there is no road from Mallaig to the Kyle of Lochalsh direct.
    Skye is well prepared for visitors, and charges accordingly. But you can go from the mainland, and there is a good hotel at Kyle of Lochalsh and a ferry plies across. This is a good place for rail travellers also—the railway runs on to the quay.
Good Rock Climbing
    The island of Skye has been written about, and sung about, and most of the songs, and many good Guide Books can be bought at the chemist’s at the Kyle (he is a knowledgeable guide), and he also sells photographs, if the mist is down over the island and you can’t take your own. But all the popularity in the world couldn’t spoil Skye, and the Cuillins are some of the finest rock climbing—there isn’t a rotten piece of rock among them.
    Get a boat to take you out around to the islands, western side, and see Skye from the sea! Up L OCH B RITTLE if you can, and L OCH C ORUSK . You will hear there stories of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and see the hiding cave. RaasayIsle and South Rona can be reached, and again if you want to stay on the mainland, you can go to stay at A PPLECROSS —very English by name, but very Scotch.
Many Islands Either Side the Little Minch
    An island to visit from further south is the Hebridean island of L EWIS . The boats run from Glasgow to S TORNOWAY (as also from Loch Ewe). Lewis is the largest of a string of islands: H ARRIS, U IST , and B ENBECULA . Here it is impossible to set you a hard and fast route. Be glad of that, for the only real way to get about these small islands is to go with no more than you can carry with you and take “luck” for