Sutherlandshire

Next to agriculture, the deep-sea fisheries and the salmon fisher ies in the rivers are the most important interest. Helmsdale and Golspie are fishing villages. Herrings are the principal catch, but cod, ling and other fishes are also taken. Whisky is distilled at Brora; some woollens are manufactured at Brora and Rogart ; coal is mined at Brora, and limestone and sandstone quarried. The exceptional facilities offered by the deer forests, moors and the many lochs and rivers attract large numbers of sportsmen; and Dornoch and Lochinver are in repute as holiday resorts. The L.M.S. railway enters the county at Invershin, goes northward to Lairg, then east to Brora and north-east to Helmsdale, whence it runs north-west to Kildonan, and north to Forsinard, where it shortly afterwards leaves the shire. The Glasgow steamers call at Lochinver about every ten days.

Population and Administration.

In 1931 the population was 16,10o, the least densely populated of Scottish counties. Sev eral islands lie off the west and north coast, but only Roan, at the entrance to Kyle of Tongue, is inhabited (4i ). In 1931 there were 24 persons speaking Gaelic only, 6,763 who spoke Gaelic and Englist. The county returns one member to parliament with Caithness, and forms a joint sheriffdom with Ross and Cromarty, with a sheriff-substitute resident at Dornoch. The county is under school-board jurisdiction.

History and Antiquities.

Of the prehistoric inhabitants, there are considerable remains in the form of many broths (or round towers), Picts' houses, tumuli, cairns and hut circles. Dun Dornadilla, in the parish of Durness, 4 m. south of Loch Hope, is a tower, 150 ft. in circumference, still in good preservation.

The Norse jarl Thorfinn overran the country in 1034 and the Scandinavian colonists called it, in relation to their settlements in the Orkneys and Shetlands, Sudrland, the "southern land," or Sutherland. After the conquest of the district by the Scottish kings, Sutherland was conferred on Hugh Freskin (a descendant of Freskin of Moravia or Moray), whose son William was created earl of Sutherland in 1228 by Alexander II. On the south shore of Helmsdale creek stand the ruins of the castle in which the 11th earl of Sutherland and his wife were poisoned by his uncle's widow in 1567, with a view to securing the title for her only child who was next of kin to the earl and his son. Ardvreck Castle, now in ruins, at the east end of Loch Assynt, was the prison of the marquis of Montrose after his defeat at Invercarron (1650), whence he was delivered up by Neil Macleod of Assynt for execution at Edinburgh. In the graveyard of the old church of Durness is a monument to Robert Mackay, called Rob Donn (the brown), the Gaelic poet (1714-1778).