ttish hotels have had a reputation of not
being as good as those of England and much more costly. We were
finding things just the reverse. Automobilism is an industry in
Scotland, not a fad, and the automobilist is catered for accordingly,
at least so it seemed to us, and, since the leading British
automobile is a Scotch production, who can deny that the Scot has
grasped the salient points of the whole scheme of affairs in a far
better manner than the Sassenach.

From Perth, through the very heart of the Scotch Highlands, we passed
through Glen Garry and the Valley of the Spey. Cairn Gorm rose
something over four thousand feet immediately on our right, when,
turning abruptly northwest, we came into Inverness just at nightfall.
It had been another long, hard day, and, since Perth, over
indifferent roads.

The capital of the Highlands, Inverness, treated us very well at the
Alexandra Hotel. As a summer or autumn resort Inverness has scarcely
its equal in Britain. It is a lively, interesting, and picturesque
town, and day lingers far on into the night by reason of its northern
situation. Its temperature, moreover, for the most part of the year,
is by no means as low as in many parts farther south.

[Illustration: The Highlands]

From Inverness, via Dingwall, Tain, and Bonar Bridge, the roads
improved, lying almost at sea-level. Here was a long sweep westward
and then eastward again, around the Moray Firth, and it was not until
we stopped at Helmsdale for lunch, 102 miles from Inverness, that we
left the coastline road, and then only for a short distance.

Again at Berriedal we came to the coast, the surging, battering North
Sea waves carving grimly every foot of the shore line. Lybster,
Albster, and Thrumster were not even names that we had heard of
previously, and we dashed through them at the legal limit, with only
a glance of the eye at their quaintness and unworldliness.

Caithness is the most northern county of Scotland, and its metropolis
is Wick, where one gets the nearest approach to the midnight sun that
can be found with civilized, modern, and up-to-date surroundings.

The Scottish Automobile Club vouched for the accommodation of the
Station Hotel, at Wick, and we had no occasion to question their
judgment. (B. B. B., six shillings; which is cheap--though it costs
you two shillings to stable your machine at a neighbouring garage.)

From Wick to John O'Groat's is thirty-six miles, out and back. We
were a