breakfast, and then, shouldering our hampers, walked quickly along the
beach to the place where we had been informed we should find them. When
we got there we saw a sight which surely could not have had its parallel
in the British Isles, for the beach was white with them for the greater
part of two miles. We were greatly astonished, for in some places the
beach was so thickly covered that, had we possessed a shovel, we could
have filled both our baskets with shells in a very few minutes. We
decided therefore to select those best suited to our purpose, and we
worked away until we had filled both our hampers. We then carried them
one at a time to the "Huna Inn," and arranged with Mr. Mackenzie to have
them carefully packed and delivered to the local carrier to be conveyed
by road to the steamboat office at Wick, and thence forwarded by water
to our home, where we knew their contents would be appreciated for
rockery purposes. The whole of our operations were completed by noon,
instead of occupying the whole of the day as anticipated, for we had a
great advantage in having such an enormous number of shells to select
from. Our host told us that farmers occasionally moved them by
cart-loads to serve as lime manure on their land. Their accumulation at
that particular spot was a mystery which he could not explain beyond the
fact that the shells were washed up from the Pentland Firth during the
great storms; so we concluded that there must be a land of shell fish in
or near that stormy deep, perhaps corresponding with that of the larger
fish whose destruction we had seen represented in the Strata of Pomona
in the Orkneys.

[Illustration: ROCKS AT DUNCANSBAY.]

We must not forget to record, however, that amongst the vast number of
shells we had turned over we found some of those lovely little shells
known as "John o' Groat's buckies," so highly prized by visitors. They