Similar memorials present themselves everywhere on the promontory, with the exception, however, of the most western and more mountainous part, adjoining the frontiers of Sutherland. This district is still inhabited by a Gaelic population, the remnant of the ancient inhabitants, as is sufficiently testified both by the Gaelic names of places and the Gaelic language of the people. In Caithness, as well as everywhere else in the British Isles, it has been the fate of the Gaels or Celts to be driven to the poor and mountainous districts, whilst more fortunate strangers have taken possession of the fertile plains. The whole of the northern and eastern part of Caithness is a rather flat and open country, over which the sea wind sweeps freely without being intercepted by woods. Fertile and well-cultivated arable land is mingled with heaths, marshes, and small lakes. Wherever the soil is capable of cultivation, both on the coasts and in the interior, a great number of undoubted Norwegian names of places are still found scattered about, of the selfsame form as those in Orkney and the Shetland Isles: as, for instance, those ending in _toft_ (as Aschantoft, Thurdystoft, formerly “Þorðarþupt”) _seter_ (“setr”), _busta_, _buster_, or _best_ (originally “bolstaðr”); but particularly in ster (staðr). The bays, which are mostly small and narrow, are generally called _goe_ (from “gjá,” an opening). The larger ones are called _wick_ (Viig); whence the town of Wick, the most important hamlet in Caithness, derives its name; but they are never called, as in the islands lately mentioned, _wall_ (“Vágr,” or “Vaag”). Here and there a mighty barrow lifts its head, and sometimes—as, for instance, near Barrowston, parish of Reay—so extremely near the coast of Pentland Firth, that the spray washes over it. In general we shall not be mistaken in imagining that we have found in such barrows the last resting-places of the daring Vikings, who, not even in death, could endure to be far separated from the foaming maelstrom. At times the common people dig up in these mounds pieces of swords and various kinds of ornaments, especially the peculiar bowl-formed brooches, of a sort of brass, which are very frequently discovered in the Scandinavian North, and particularly in the Norwegian and Swedish graves of the times of the Vikings. These are never found in England; and in Scotland they are discovered only in the Orkneys and Sutherland, as well as in some of the Western Islands, where the Norwegians also settled. [Illustration: [++] Brooch]