CHAPTER I.

THE STEAM-SHIP “QUEEN”--THE ORKNEYS AND MAES HOWE--THE SHETLANDS AND THE FÆROE ISLANDS.

Adieu, O Edinburgh! whether thou prefer to be titled Edina, Dun-Edin, Quebec of the Old World, the Grand Chartreuse of Presbyterianism, Modern Athens--a trifle too classical--or Auld Reekie, good Norsk but foul, fuliginous, and over familiar. Many thanks for the civilities lavished, with one “base exception,” upon the traveller, who returns them in a host of good wishes. _E.g._, May the little lads and lasses that play ball and hop-scotch upon thy broad _trottoirs_ presently rise, like the infantry of Ireland and the Cici of Istria, to the dignity of shoes and stockings! May the odious paving-stones, which, under gigantic “busses,” make thee the noisiest as thou art the most picturesque city in the empire, disappear before the steam-roller and the invention of thine own son Macadam: the former, after having long been used in the virgin forest of the Brazil, has at length found its way to London, and why should it not travel north? May unclean wynd and impure close, worse than the Ghetto of Damascus, perish with krames and lucken-booths, and revive in broad way and long square! May the railroad cars put in an appearance amongst the open hackneys, whose reckless driving, like that of the Trieste jarvey, seems to be connected in business with the undertaker; and may the stands no longer be wholly deserted on the Scoto-Judaic Sabbath! May there be some abatement and mitigation of the rule, "Let us all be unhappy on Sunday”--when man may drink “whusky,” but “manna whustle”--that earthly and transitory equivalent, as the facetious Roman Catholic remarked, for the more durable, but haply the not more unendurable, Purgatory! May thy beef lose its pestilent flavour of oil-cake, thy dames look less _renfrognées_, and thy sons unlearn the stock phrase which begins every answer “Eh! nae!” And lastly, St Giles grant that so hospitable a city may condescend to set on foot a club where the passing stranger, not only the “general commanding,” can see his name enrolled for a month or two of membership, and no longer suffer from the outer darkness of utter clublessness!

The spring of 1872 was tardy and dreary, and though I had left London _en route_ for Iceland shortly after mid-May, June began before the normal severity of a septentrional summer justified departure northwards. Travellers of the last generation were still subject to the sailing ship. Mr Chambers and his party are the first (1855) who had the chance of a “smoky Argosy,” and the wild island-fishermen flocked to save a ship which appeared to be on fire, whilst the country people fled from the monster to their lava fastnesses. So in 1832 the first steamer passing the Shetlands coast, greatly excited the unsophisticated peasantry by suggesting witchcraft--I am not sure that some did not expect Thor to be on board. So, finally, Captain Trevithick’s “puffing devil” was held by Cornishmen to be the gentleman in black; and French peasants shot at balloons, holding them to be monstrous birds.

During the summer of 1872 there was embarrassment in the wealth of conveyance. The royal mail steamship (Danish Government) “Diana” touches at Granton[296] and Lerwick once a month between March and November. The Norwegian steamer, “Jón Sigurðsson,” visited the chief port of the Shetlands with a certain irregularity, but the electric telegraph could always give timely warning. The “Yarrow” of Glasgow, belonging to Mr Slimon, ran during the season; and Mr Robert Buist of Edinburgh chartered the “Queen” from the Aberdeen, Leith, and Clyde Shipping Company. We shall see them all in due time.

Accompanied by my brother Stisted, I ran down to Granton betimes on June 4, along a road whose sides are coped walls, not rails and hedges, through a country still showing early spring, although some six weeks more advanced than Iceland. A couple of hours’ delay gave us time to inspect Granton, and we owe it a debt of gratitude for saving us the mortification of ancient Grangemouth. Scotch tourists in Iceland compare its regularity with the irregularity of Reykjavik: it is regular as a skeleton, this sketch-town, this prospectus, this programme-city with its three piers--the Mineral, the Middle, and the Breakwater; and with its square composed of two sides, the gaunt, grim hotel forming half the whole. The staple trade appears limited to blue-green barrels of the old “petreol,” which now seem to travel all round the world.[297] The central quay--whose promenaders, though no longer fined threepence, may not smoke--is remarkably good; and wind-bound ships affect the harbour, because its bottom is soft mud, and because they are charged for shelter only one penny per ton during the whole stay, discharging cargo for sixpence instead of a shilling at Leith. The place is the property of the bold Buccleuch, who, bolder this time than even at the British Association, expended, ὡς λέγουσι, £1,200,000 for an annual consideration of £15,000. Despite its stout-hearted progenitor, it is a dull, young Jack of a settlement, all work and no play; but we shall find it perfect civilisation, a little Paris in fact, on landing from Reykjavik.

At 1.30 P.M. we cast loose, or, to put it more poetically with a modern author, we assisted at the “chorus of sailors,” who are supposed to sing--

“The windlass ply, the cable haul With a stamp and go, and a yeo-heave-oh!”

The little knot of friends--T. Wright of the 93d and D. Herbert of the _Courant_--wave farewell hats from the pier. It is an exceptional day. The German Ocean wearing an imitation azure and gold robe, with the false air of a southern sea, treacherously promises a yachting trip. The smoke of many steamers forms a thin buff canopy, far-stretching over the waste of pale sky-blue waters striped here and there with long bands of yet milkier hue--_placidi pellacia ponti_. The Firth of Forth somewhat reminded me of the fair entrance to Tagus; only here, instead of obsolete windmills and huge palaces, we see red-tiled roofs and tall stacks, artificial fumaroles vomiting pitchy vapours--the various symbols of a very busy race. Along the populous shores of the Fifeish “kingdom” whose _riant_ hills are loved by foxes that love lambs, where the Lomonds give a _faux-air_ of resemblance to the Bay of Bombay, rise successively Burntisland, Kinghorn, Kirkcaldy, Wemyss, and Leven with gables facing the sea and fringing the main, “as lace embroiders the edges of a lady’s petticoat.” After yet a little time there will be a single line of habitation along what the late M. Alexandre Dumas, the inventor of the “Lapin Gaulois,” called the “Fifth of the Fourth, or sea arm running up to Edinburgh,” and its limits will be Dunbar and St Andrews. In the rear rises the lumpy blue sofa that formed Arthur’s Seat, a local Cader Idris, very like, under certain aspects, the Istrian Monte Maggiore; here the husband of Queen Guenevere is what Wallace and Auld Michael are to the rest of Scotland, ‘Antar to Syria, the Devil or Julius Cæsar to Brittany, and Sæmund-the-Learned-cum-Gretti-the-Strong to Iceland. The volcanic outcrop, famed by Huttonians, is flanked to the north by the basaltic Salisbury Crags, whose billows of stone I had last seen in the limestone cliffs of Marmarún or Dinhá (_vide_ Unexplored Syria); and a thin white thread at the base denotes the “Radical Road” (to Ruin), round which the ragged ruffians and rascals run.

And so we steam past Inchkeith; here a tall lighthouse is flanked seawards by a pile of buildings which would have been better sheltered on the other side, and which ought to be a mass of batteries like Gibraltar. We cannot but remark the utterly defenceless state of the northern capital, which lies literally at the mercy of a single ironclad, commanded by any Paul Jones. But happily in these days we battle with gold not with steel; we arbitrate instead of fighting. Otherwise we might be tempted to propose torpedo stations, iron-rivetted turrets, and other appliances of an art which the policy of the last five years has made utterly antiquated, not to say barbarous. The Westminster players of 1872 grumble--

“Ah! minimè refert quid sentiat Anglia! Totam Mutandis sese mercibus illa dedit. Pacis amans quovis pretio, maris arbitra quondam Nunc ipsa externo pendet ab arbitrio--”

and grumble in vain.[298] However, “we have heard about that before.” We have also heard of yon quaint pyramid on the starboard bow, concerning which Mr Henderson says (i. 36), “The term ‘Law’ is still applied to many hills in Scotland, as ‘Largo-Law,’ and so forth.” But the verbal resemblance to the natural Lögbergs (law-mounts) of Iceland,[299] Orkneys, and Shetlands, corresponding with the artificial moot-hills of Scotland, is a trivial accident which has caused a philological stumble. “Law” is simply the Anglo-Saxon Hlæw or Hlaw, primarily a low hill, secondarily a tumulus, cairn, or sepulchral burrow (Bearw or Bearo), heaped over the dead, as Lud-low the Low of Lude. Berwick-Law, though shaped very like a Lögberg, means only Berwick Hill. Farther east is the Bass, “sea-rock immense,” northwards steep-to apparently the rule of the northern coast and the Orkneys, a broad-shouldered and misshapen stack rising, like Ailsa Craig, sheer from the sea, and now very far from being the “terror of navigators.”

During dinner, at the primitive and Viennese hour of four P.M., we had passed Fifeness, _alias_ the East Neuk of Fife, not our “nook,” an indention, but the Norsk Hnjúkr or Hnúkr, a knoll; the high, lone hill, like Arthur’s Seat, occupies a long, blue tongue, which projects a perilous reef some ten miles out to sea. The Firth of Tay--“firth,” from Fjörð, is right; “frith,” from Fretum, is wrong--with its many brethren, are foretastes of Iceland and Norway; the huge gapes of dwarfish bodies, embouchures whose breadth promises a length of many hundred miles, which the shortness of the watershed reduces to scores. Such are the estuaries and giant mouths of the Gaboon, and, indeed, of all the South African rivers save five--the Congo and Zambezi, the Rufiji, the Limpopo, and the Orange; and we need hardly go so far to study the feature, as the Mersey of Mercia is a first-rate specimen. We peer from a distance at the “Geneva of the North” (_proh pudor!_), the Faridon dé, the Donum Dei, famed in the days of terror as the abode of the “reverend citizen Douglas,” where of late the mob-caps have had a famous bout of “clapper-clawing” with the bonnets of bonnie Dundee; and where, according to its own _Advertiser_, “there are heathens who read newspapers during the Christmas holidays.”

Broad daylight blazed till ten P.M.; but fog, probably born of smoke, and marring the effect of the pretty sail, obscured the outlines of Fowls’ Heugh, in Kincardineshire. These are cliffs some 300 to 400 feet high, where adventurous cragsmen still risk broken necks to plunder birds’ nests. The Færoese hold that the unfortunates falling from great heights burst in mid air; and it has been remarked by those who have had ample opportunities of induction, that the many who have thrown themselves off the London monument wear placid countenances, showing none of the horrors of agonising death. It is possible, then, that the sudden shock may cause asphyxia and apoplexy--we will hope that it does.

Before “turning in,” as the wheezing of the wind and the pelting showers of blacks suggest, let us shortly survey the ship and our shipmates, a process which travellers apparently despise as unworthy of their high-mightinesses. The “Queen,” Captain William Reid, is a crowded little thing of 280 tons register; a startling contrast to Messrs Papayanni’s large and comfortable “Arkadia,” Captain Peter Blacklock, in which I last sailed as _the_ passenger from Bayrút. She is licensed to carry forty-seven miserables; her old-fashioned engines half-consume twenty-three tons of coal in twenty-four hours; and her horse-power (230) makes her bore through the water at the maximum rate of nine knots. She has no bath; washing is at a discount amongst these northerners; her offices are truly awful; and the berths are apparently built for Arctic exploration, or for the accommodation of General Tom Thumb and Commodore Nutt: the close vapours would generate nightmare, but, happily, only the stewards sleep in the main cabin. The food is profuse but primitive--giant tureens of oleaginous soup; fish which cannot be kept quite fresh; huge junks of meat, of course carved at table; mutton chops--not cutlets--all fat, or rather tallow; vast slices of “polonies,” lard-speckled, and very like the puddings of sheep’s blood farther north; marbled potatoes; graveolent cabbages; parsnips and carrots, hateful to Banting; poor bread; good hard biscuit; excellent butter, much enjoyed by Icelanders; rice puddings, and huge pies of rhubarb, locally called overring or southern wood; tea which resembles nothing that fancy can suggest; coffee much resembling a watery decoction of senna; excellent whisky; the usual brandy, _not_ right “Nantz,” and gin clean forgotten.

The passengers are all first-class, and those who should be seconds pay somewhat less than the usual return fare, £6--board not included. In these lands, the three R’s are the great levellers; and for a certain roughness, moral as well as physical, we need hardly visit Canada or the Far West; our Lowlander, emphatically opposed to the Highlander, supplies us with an admirable specimen. Many of the travellers are bound northwards on business, and their “Gentlemen, who says feesh?” reminds us of Mr _Punch_ and his “pudden.” There is a laird of the parts about Aberdeen, accompanied by an intelligent Scotch bailiff; an army man, Major B., and his brother-in-law, Mr S.; a navy man, Captain H., much addicted to fishing; another Piscator, popularly known as Johnny B.; and a missionary, who will not walk the quarter-deck on “the Sabbath.” He offers a tract to our parson--we can longer quote amongst British proverbs, “Coals to Newcastle”--the Rev. R. M. Spence, originally of Kirkwall, Orkneys, and now holding the manse of Arbuthnott. I must name him; his local knowledge was most valuable to all on board; it was given freely and without stint, and after his “parson’s week,” he was kind enough to correspond with me during my stay in Iceland. Kirkwall has produced much “good company,” but none better than the Reverend Spence. There is a stewardess, who stoutly cleared for herself the ladies’ saloon. The steward and his mate are of the type often seen on board the “leather-breeches mob of steamers”--an epithet, mind, which I do not apply to the “Queen.” They are fond of bumping you, of spilling the soup, of putting unclean towels upon your open books, of carrying a host of articles in one hand, of charging the smallest and meanest items, and of being peculiarly civil on the last day. The captain soon merits the general description of a “regular brick;” he has no pilot who knows coast or course, not a soul on board has ever been in Iceland, yet he accepts all responsibility like a man and a seaman; and he will spend on deck two successive nights of fog and wet. Finally, although the “Queen” is not one of the floating coffins which have roused Mr Plimsoll’s just indignation, she was sent out in a peculiarly reckless way,[300] and without so good a sailor as Captain Reid, she--and we--ran the very best chances of coming to a bad end.

* * * * *

_June 5._

During the few dark, or rather chiaro-oscuro, hours, we ran along the coast north-east and by east, turning the great shoulder north of Aberdeen. As the raw and rainy morning dawned, high loomed on the port bows Duncansby, popularly written Duncansbay, Head, whose castellated and ruin-shaped rocks of yellow-brown sandstone, streaked with white layers of guano, were new features to us; much resembling in form, though not in formation, what Iceland will show. The steep and frowning headland, sentinelled by needles, the Shetland “drongs,” the Færoese “drengr,” and the Icelandic “drangar,” bluff to the sea, and sloping backwards in long brown-green dorsa, is lit up by a sickly, pallid sun, which picks out of the dark curtain the snowy wings of myriad sea-fowl. The parallel strata supply the celebrated flags of Caithness, and the softer parts are readily hollowed into “Devil’s nostrils,” Helyers,[301] or sea-washed caverns, with pyramidal entrances which cause frequent cliff-falls.

Beyond this point the coast is fretted into shallow bays of good soil, fronted by sandy beaches of dwarf proportions, and here and there by a small scaur; the chord is also pierced by long winding passages, incipient Fjörðs, whose vistas end in yellow shingle. These pasture-lands of Caithness are scattered with cots, “infield” and “outfield,” but we look in vain for copse, wood, or forest. As a northern writer said some hundred years ago, “A single tree does not appear that may afford shelter to friendship and innocence” (why innocence?), and fuel must be supplied by wreck-wood and drift-wood, by peat and wrack, by cattle chips and bones. The cause is one from the Prairies and the Pampas to the Carso of Trieste, and the rich uplands of Spain, Syria, and the Haurán. Be the soil ever so fertile, its growth, without the protection of walls or depressions in the level, is soon blasted by the furious cutting winds. The experiment of planting pitch-pines (_Pinus picea_ and _Pinus abies_) was tried by Governor Thodal of Iceland, but the trunks never rose above two feet from the ground, and, like Dean Swift, they died at the head. The scene already suggests Thule without its Jökulls; scattered byes, greenish _túns_ (“towns,” or home-fields), brown distances, low stone walls, and big bistre-coloured cliffs, black below where bathed by the flowing tide.

Behind Duncansbay Ness[302] we are shown the site of John o’ Groat’s House; there is no need to walk there, as a stage coach now runs along the fine broad road from the “(ex-) Herring Capital of the North” (Wick). The old “Norwegian,” as some miscall him, left Holland with Malcolm Cavin, and brought to Caithness a Latin letter from James II. of Scotland recommending him to the northern lieges. It is still a disputed point whether the Grotes of the Orkneys are the original stock, or drifted there through Scotland. Strangers are taken to the semi-historical ruin, a one-storied octagon, with its eight windows, which appeased fraternal wrath--if, at least, there were eight, and not two brothers. It is supposed to be a banqueting-hall, as there are no bedrooms, and only the photograph for sale at Wick, probably taken from some apocryphal sketch, caps it with a small look-out. A dull grey barn is here fronted by a dwarf sand-streak, up which fisher boats are drawn, whilst others, with stained sails, scud and toss over the unquiet waters. The colouring matter is peat. In the Bahia de S. Salvador (Brazil) the Piaçaba palm supplies the tannin-dye, while Venice and Dalmatia assert superior claims to art by rough pictures in coloured earths and oil. The object is everywhere the same--to make the canvas last.

And now with the rock ledges called “Pentland Skerries” on our right, we dance over the tide-rip of the terrible “Pight-land Firth,”[303] which has become classical in the north, like Pharaoh’s Ford in the Gulf of Suez. Mýsing, the sea-king, according to the Elder Edda, ended the “Peace of Fróði,” by slaying Fróði, king of Denmark; he also captured the clattering hand-quern Grótti, and the two prescient damsels Fenia and Menia. The victor ground white salt in the vanquished ships until they sank in Pentland Firth, causing the main to become briny: there has ever since been a vortex where the sea falls into the “well” or mill’s eye, and the roar of the ocean is the grinding of the quern.[304] And all this folk-lore because at times storm-wind meets tide running some five to seven knots an hour with “waws” and “swelchies,” causing sore grief to many a gallant ship. Yet there are men still young--Colonel Burroughs of the 93d (Sutherland) Highlanders is one--who habitually crossed this firth in open boats.

We had now turned the north-eastern end of Scotland, where Ben Dorrery, a blue saddleback somewhat crater-shaped, rose supreme; and where Foss or cascade water, anciently Fors, draining Lake Lunnery, suggested Scandinavia. We presently passed the Paps of Caithness, and admired the grand profile of classical Dunnet Head,[305] whose flanks are horizontally streaked with broad golden patches, whilst a Cockney gun of our party brought out a swarming colony of birds from their cliffy homes. Behind it lay Thurso (Thjórsá, or Bull water), built with the dull grey stone of Bath, not the picturesque red of Edinburgh, nestling in the usual fertile bight, shallow withal and open to the northern ocean. We halted for the first and last time off Holburn Head to take in and deal out letters. Beyond it the picturesque Sutherland Highlands ended in a long line of bluffs remarkably quoin-shaped. Dim in the slaty and stormy sky rose Farout Head, not unlike the Elephant Mountain, the classical Mons Felix that outlies the murderous Somali Coast. Ten miles west of it rose the north-western Land’s End of Scotland, a mere hummock low down upon the horizon. This was Cape Wrath, which some understand literally, whilst others derive it from “Rath,” a conical hill, or a fortified place: it is evidently Cape Hvarf, a common name, as Hvarven, near Bergen, for a sudden turn of coast. “You should see it in December,” said the steward, when we were disposed to deride its anger: he had doubled it in a casual vessel from Liverpool to Dundee carrying sugar and palm oil.

And now it is time to cast a look starboardways from Duncansbay Head. The first feature is Stroma Island (Straumsey, corrupted to Stromey), bluff to the north-west, and sloping gradually to the south-eastern sea; the inner sound is a narrow channel, lately rendered safe by a red beacon. The scrap of land--a small item of the two hundred inhabited which form the British archipelago--is politically included in Caithness, but, popularly speaking, it belongs to the Scoto-Scandinavian race, the fourth great family of Great Britain, utterly dissimilar from the Norman of the Channel Islands, the Kelt, and the Anglo-Kelt. Their neighbours talk of the “poor sneaks of Stroma,” and these retort by the opprobrious term “ferrie-loupers.” The memory of many a broken head and bloody fray in bygone day is preserved in the couplet--

“Caithness cabes (_i.e._, ticks), lift up your heads, And let the Orkney sheep go by!”

How soon will telegrams and steamers--there is a daily mail between Thurso and Stromness--cause these local differences to share the fate of the national garb?

Behind Stroma, and towering over it in the purple grey cloud, is South Ronaldshaw, or Ronaldsha, in whose corrupted and degraded name we can hardly trace the pure and classical Norsk termination.[306] Properly Ronansey, from St Ronan, Ringan, or Ninian, it still preserves an old-world flavour. Till the last thirty years wreckers were rife: it was held “best to let saut water gang its gate;” in other words, uncanny, as we find in “The Pirate,” to save a drowning sailor. Mariners lost all their rights when keel once touched sand; whatever was cast ashore became the lawful property of the people; Earl Patrick, who now is cursed at Scalloway because “he hung the Shetlanders,” was blessed for his wise laws against all that would help ships amongst the breakers; a wreck was a sight to “wile the parson out of his pulpit in the middle of his preaching,” and the blessing upon the shore was coupled with a wish that the Lord would send “mair wrecks ere winter.” Men still remember the old Orcadian minister’s prayer: “O Lord, I wish not ill to my neighbours, but if wrecks be going, remember Thy poor island of Sandey!”[307] The clergy feared to offend those sturdy pagans, their “little ones,” by denouncing from the pulpit what the devoutest held to be a “dispensation of Providence.” A pious fraud began by excommunicating all who broke the Sabbath in such Satan’s work, and the course of time did the rest.

But old ideas do not readily die. Lately a farmer in Orphir parish (Ör-fjara, or Ör-fyri, “a reef covered by high tide”), having lost many head of cattle by “witching,” applied to the “spae-wife,” who prescribed the sacrifice of a bull-calf, probably by cremation, to Baal. The practice is, of course, kept secret, yet the best possible authority at Kirkwall told me he had reason to suspect that such offerings to the sun-god are by no means singular. The late pugnacious Sir James Simpson (Archæological Essays) also heard of a cow being buried alive as a sacrifice to the spirit of murrain. The Yule bonfires and the games of ball at that season were also in honour of the greater light.

Beyond South Ronaldshaw we had a fair profile view of Hoy (=Há-ey, high isle), a three-hilled, long, narrow parallelogram which took us some five hours to pass. The fierce south-westers which scoop and scallop western Scotland, like western Iceland and the occidental coasts of north Europe generally, render cultivation impossible except on the leeward side, where the “links” are.[308] _En passant_, it may be observed that the island capitals between Caithness and Iceland, as Stornoway of the Hebrides, Kirkwall of the Orkneys, Lerwick of the Shetlands, and Thorshaven of the Færoes, are all built upon the eastern shore. We strained eyes in vain to sight the position of Walter Scott’s “Dwarfie Stones,” so called _per antiphrasin_, says Brand;, and equally vain was the “search for the great carbuncle” of Ward Hill, now invisible as the gem of the Diamond Rock, and probably never seen save by the eyes of faith. I heard of the same mysterious light in the far Gaboon River. We were more fortunate with the Hill of Hoy, the tallest part of the dorsum (1500 feet), whose “Old Man,” which farther north would be called a “witch finger,” appeared first a dot, then a column, and lastly a dome upon the summit of a huge cathedral. It is of the “Old Red,” a pale, unfossiliferous sandstone, the normal material of the western mainland, though some describe it as a slaty formation supported by a base of granite, which also crops out near Stromness. According to Bleau, the midnight sun can be seen from it in midsummer; Dr Wallace qualifies the statement by opining that the true solar body cannot be visible, but only its image refracted through some watery cloud upon the horizon. The last glimpse of Hoy was Ronay Head, a glorious bluff at least 1000 feet high, and beyond it lay nought save _pontus et aer_.

I will here step out of the order of my journey, which would more wisely have been reversed. To begin with Iceland is to begin at the end, neglecting the various steps and stages of Orkneys, Shetlands, and Færoes, whilst to describe the climax and its anti-climax, would be utterly uninteresting and bathetic. My three days (Sept. 10, 11, and 12) at the Church-bay (Kirkjuvágr, vogr, vad, waw, wall) produced some results, and these shall be briefly recorded.

The good ship “St Magnus” ran up “the String” to Kirkwall Roads, and landed me after a ten hours’ passage from Lerwick. My first care was to send my introductory letter, the gift of Mr Gatherer, to Mr George Petrie, well known in the anthropological world. He kindly led me to the little museum, which, like that of Lerwick, is far behind the order and neatness of Reykjavik. The collection contains good specimens of netting needles, cut out of rein and red deer bone: the former animal extended to the Orkneys, as broken bones have been found in the burghs, and suggest that they were continental. There were natural stone knives, looking as if shaped by art--the Brazil shows heaps of celts equally deceptive--pots of micaceous schist and steatite from Shetland; combs conjectured to have been used for ornamenting pottery; a two-handed scraper of whale’s bone; specimens of “bysmers” and “pundlers,” wooden bars used as steelyards, the former three, and the latter seven, feet long: they carried the Norwegian weights, “bysmars” and “lispunds,”[309] which took root in the Shetlands. I noticed the huge Varangian[310] fibulæ and torques; the querns still common amongst the islandry; red “keel” or pigment of silicious hæmatite, showing that even the artless dames did not ignore the art of rouge; rude beads of bone and clay; and a human skull with four rabbit teeth, possibly bevelled by the “bursten bigg,” coarse roasted bere or barley, even as the Guanches of Tenerife ground down their molars with parched grain. My guide showed me his ingenious plan for “squeezes,” and making casts of spearheads and similar articles by means of warmed gutta-percha applied to the stone, and lastly cooled in water.

Scapa (Skálpeið) Brock, the highly interesting ruin discovered by Mr Petrie in 1870, was of course visited. At the Earl’s Castle, whose approach is choked with trees like that of Baalbek, I remarked that the kitchen and the banqueting-room had false and shouldered arches, which might have been borrowed from the Haurán. We pitied poor St Magnus the Martyr for the insult lately offered to him in the shape of a wretched court-house--a similar affront has been inflicted upon York Minster. The old cathedral, grand in its rude and ponderous Norman-Gothic, is made remarkable by the red sandstone mixed with whitey-grey _calcaires_: it shares with St Mungo the honour of being the finest remains of Catholicism in the north, and it is unduly neglected by strangers. The view from that eye-sore, the stunted spire, is charming. North-west stretches the Bay of Firth, famed for oysters, backed by the dark heights of Rousay (Hrólfsey); while north-east lies Shapinshay (Hjápandisey),[311] smiling with corn and white houses, with the dark hillocks of low-lying Edey in the distance. Amongst the smaller islets may be mentioned castled Damsey (Daminsey); the Holm of Quanterness; Thieves’ Holm (Thjófaholmr), where robbers, who were supposed not to swim, found a safe prison, and often, too, a long home; and the whale-back of Gairsey (Gáreksey), with the stronghold of that Sveinn (Sweyn), who lost his pirate life when attacking Dublin--the Vikings seem ever to have preferred these fragments of earth where the sea, their favourite element, was never far distant. Nearer and rising from the reniform “Mainland,” _alias_ Pomona, by the Sagas called Hrossey or Horse Island, is Wideford (Hvitfjörð) Hill, backed by the Oyce or Peerie Sea. The ground-wave is dark with bloomless gorse, and ruddy with fading heath, whilst higher still

“Earth clad in russet scorns the lively green.”

It is a progressive country: middle-aged men have shot grouse in the mosses near Kirkwall where now the fields bear corn. The peasant’s father despaired of growing grass: the son ploughs the bog, builds dry walls with the larger stones that cumber the surface, cuts deep drains, and top-dresses with sand and lime. Hands, however, are wanting; the fisheries bring more money than agriculture; and the good landlord will not part with his slow old tenantry, because he cannot replace it.

Two monuments in the cathedral are peculiarly interesting, and partly relieve the desert and dismal appearance of all Catholic places of worship converted to a “purer creed.” The first is that of the Irving family, true Orcadians, who never changed their name since A.D. 1361, and one lies murdered in A.D. 1614. Mr Petrie, the discoverer, communicated with the great Washington of that ilk, who replied courteously, forwarding at the same time a presentation copy of his works. Mr Pliny Miles (Norðurfari) and others of his class are fond of claiming all distinguished names for their own country; for instance, Snorri Thorfinnsson, “the first Yankee[312] on record,” is the forefather of Finn Magnússon and Thorvaldsen, whilst Captain Ericsson is the descendant of Eric the Red. It would be easier far to trace all American celebrities directly to Europe, and many of them would not be sorry to see the process thus inverted.

The second tomb, much more interesting to me than those of King Hakon and Maid Margaret, is the cenotaph of Dr Baikie, R.N., designed and inscribed, I believe, by Sir Henry Dryden: certainly both design and inscription deserve scanty credit. Not a word about the original profession of poor “Hammie,” as he was called by a host of friends. And why should it be a cenotaph? Why bequeath the explorer’s bones to the ignoble “European’s grave,” S’a Leone? Worse still, the journals, once so interesting, have been allowed to lie in obscurity for want of an editor, and a decade in these days takes away almost all the value of an African traveller’s diary. Dr Baikie is supposed also to have left a valuable collection of Nigerian vocabularies--these, at least, might be forwarded to the Anthropological Institute. I can only express a hope that the bereaved family will bestir itself before the cold shade of oblivion obscures the memory of a heroic name.

After a long spell of cloudy, misty, and rainy weather, Thursday, the 12th September, broke fine, with a clear sun and a high rollicking wind which swept the rolling surface-water like a broom. In these islands, July, August, and September are frequently wet; in October the “peerie simmer”[313] of St Martin, the Indian summer of the United States, sets in and gladdens the eye of man before the glooms of winter round off the year. Mr Petrie proposed himself as guide to Wideford Hill, Ingishowe (Howe of Inga), Maes Howe, Stennis, Borgar (Brúargarðr), and Stromness--I need hardly tell the pleasure with which his kind offer was accepted. He has not only admirably described these and other antiquities (especially in his “Notice of the Brochs, or Large Round Towers of Orkney,” etc., read before the S.N.A., June 11, 1866): he has done far more important work by converting popular _insouciance_, and even ridicule, into a something of his own enthusiasm. Nor should I forget to say that in this great task he has been ably and efficiently supported by the landlord-class, amongst whom Colonel Balfour of Balfour Castle and Ternaby (Tjarnabær), the owner of Maes Howe, has especially distinguished himself. We shall now hope to have heard the last of such barbarism as breaking up the venerable “Odin’s Stone” into building material. These acts are like the state of Uriconium, a national disgrace; we only wish that Jarl Hakon had Mr M----’s leg in the “Cashidawis,” or “Warm Hose”--a fitting reward for those who justify the sneer--

“Quod non fecerunt Gothi Hoc fecerunt Scoti.”

It is also to be desired that the liberal proprietor of Maes Howe would take active steps to defend the highly interesting central chamber from the inclemency of the weather; the barrow was opened in July 1861, and already the interior has suffered from exposure.

The most interesting event of the day was the inspection of Maes Howe, which some one has lately suggested to be “simply a Norse fort.” It would be mere impertinence to offer a general description of this unique barrow after the studies of Mr Farrer (“Notice of Runic Inscriptions discovered during Recent Excavations in the Orkneys,” made by James Farrer, M.P.; printed for private circulation, 1862); lately popularised by Mr Fergusson in “Rude Stone Monuments.” The three mortarless _loculi_ of huge slabs and their closing stones reminded me so strongly of the miscalled “Tombs of the Kings,” north of Jerusalem, that I felt once more in the “Holy Land.” It is a glorious monument of the great tomb-building race, or races whose animistic creed, the essence of fetichism, expresses itself in tent-tombs (chambered cairns) and cave-tombs (rock-cut chambers) upon the Siberian steppes, the Algerian plains, the Wiltshire downs, and the Scoto-Scandinavian islands. At Maes Howe we find all its characteristics--the stone circle which drove away the profane; the long passage which keeps warm the cave or hut; the vestibule for the funeral feast, and the various rooms for the dead to live in. And at the first sight of the Branch Runes,[314] otherwise called Palm Runes, I remembered having seen a similar alphabet in northern Syria.

A ride to Hums, of old Emesa (February 27, 1871), and a visit to my old friend the Nestorian Matrán (Metropolitan) Butrus, introduced me to the alphabet known as El Mushajjar, or the branched, one of the many cyphers formerly and, for aught I know, still current amongst Semitic races. Returning to England, I sent a copy of it to the Anthropological Institute, intending to illustrate a paper which was reprinted in “Unexplored Syria” (vol. ii., Appendix, p. 241): unfortunately the copy was lost.

According to the Matrán’s MS. there are two forms of El Mushajjar, one applied to Arabic, and the other to Pehlevi. Both are read from right to left, and the following is the Arabic form:

No. I.

The adjoined is the Pehlevi.

No. II.

No. III. is the Norsk-Runic alphabet, read from left to right, as classified by Mr George Petrie, to decipher the palm-runes in Maes Howe.

No. III.

And the following are the inscriptions on the walls of Maes Howe:

No. IV.

The key to the cypher is here shown by the transverse stroke on the stem of the first letter to the left (A or æ).

No. V.

forming an inceptive--“these runes.” In the word “Runar,” the left-hand branches are turned down by way of variety; of course the number is the same. Finally, it is interesting to compare this “Mushajjar” with a similar system, the Irish letters, which bear the names of trees. They are:

And even in the common runes, we may observe that there is only one (R) which is not composed of a rune-staff, supporting offsets disposed at various angles.

No. I., the Arabic form connected by horizontal base-lines, contains two sets of three, and four sets of four letters, read as usual in Semitic alphabets; beginning with Alpha and ending with Tau: it is in fact the Aleph-Tav of the Hebrews and of the older Arabs, as preserved in the numeral and chronological syllabarium “El Abjad.” I need hardly note that this was characteristic of the world-conquering Phœnician, that glorious gift to Greece, usually attributed to Cadmus (El Kadim, or the Ancient), and by us incongruously applied to our Aryan speech; a comparison of the sequences _a_, _b_, _c_, and _d_ (Abjad), and _k_, _l_, _m_, and _n_ (Kalaman) with any other system at once proves direct derivation. In the Pehlevi Mushajjar the letters, it will be seen, are not joined at the base, and sundry branches are formed in a different way.

Mr Farrer, who first “established the important fact of Runic inscriptions existing in Orkney, where none had hitherto been found,” gives both sets of palm-runes (Plates VIII. and IX.). He borrows the following information (p. 29, referring to Plate VIII.) from Professor Stephens, a good Norsk scholar: “The six crypt runes or secret staves represent the letters A, Æ, R, L, I, K, R, and signify Aalikr or Erling, a proper name, or perhaps the beginning of some sentence.” Professor Munch observes, “The other characters in the third line are known as ‘Limouna,[315] or Bough-Runes.’ They were used during the later times of the Runic period in the same manner as the Irish Ogham, but are not here intelligible. The writer probably intended to represent the chief vowels--A, E, I, O, U, Y. The Runic alphabet was divided into two classes: the strokes on the left of the vertical line indicating the class, and those on the right the rune itself.” And Professor Rafn declares, “The palm-runes underneath cannot be read in the usual manner; the first, third, and fourth of the runes being _a_, _o_, and _i_; the writer probably intended to give all the vowels, but some of the letters have been obviously miscarried, and have perhaps been altered and defaced at a later period by other persons. In the first of these a cross line has been added to show that the letter _a_ is intended.” Of No. XVIII. (Plate X.), Mr Farrer notes, “The palm-runes are rarely capable of being deciphered.” Professor Munch similarly declares, “The boughrunes are not easy to decipher;” whilst Professor Stephens asserts, “The palm-runes on the first line indicate Thisar Runar--‘these runes.’” They are mentioned in the Elder Edda (Sigrdrífumál, stanza 11):

“Lim-runes thou must ken, An thou a leech wouldst be, And know to heal hurts.”

The cryptogram, “El Mushajjar,” was forwarded to Mr Petrie, who replied as follows: “I attempted by means of your tree-branched alphabet to read the palm-runes of Maes Howe, but failed. It then occurred to me that they might correspond with the Futhork, or Icelandic alphabet, and, obtaining the key of the cipher, I completely succeeded after a few hours’ trial. On referring to Mr Farrer’s copies of the translations given by the Scandinavian professors, I find that Professor Stephens appears to have put five runes in each of the first two classes, which makes the third palm-rune (inscription No. I.) to be L instead of Y; moreover, he does not give the key. My first attempt at classifying the runes by means of the cipher turned out correct, and I have therefore retained that classification in reading the second inscription. It is evident that the classification could be altered at will of the person using it, and this uncertainty of arrangement must constitute the difficulty of interpreting such runes.”

In Nos. XIX. and XX. (Plate X.) we read “Iorsafarar Brutu Orkhröugh”--the Jórsalafarar (Jerusalem-farers, _i.e._, pilgrim-visitors of Jerusalem) broke open Orkhow (shelter-mound), probably in search of treasure: the latter is an object especially Eastern. There are seven crosses, and one inscription (No. XIII.) must be read from right to left. We may therefore believe that certain old _Coquillards_, and possibly Crusaders, returning from Palestine, whence they brought the “hubby,”[316] violated the tombs, and left a single name and an unfinished inscription to record their propensity[317] for grave-plundering.

We visited the museum at Stromness, the amorpholites or “Standing Stones,” and that “Mediterranean in miniature,” the Stennis Lake, whose flora is partly marine and partly lacustrine. Hereabouts, the plain shows distinct remnants of the two great epochs--Bruna-öld, the Age of Burning; and Hauga-öld, the Age of Burial. We have no reason to believe the tradition that Odin introduced cremation; doubtless, the “crematee” was chiefly of the wealthy classes, while the poor were inhumed--they were both synchronous in the days of the Twelve Tables: “Hominem mortuum in urbe ne sepelito, neve urito.” Hence a valuable rule for tracing the exact limits of old Roman cities, even of Rome herself: the cemetery was always outside the city settlement, and, if possible, to the south.

The day ended happily, as it began, in meeting Colonel Burroughs of Rousay, and Dr Rea of Arctic fame. My memories of Kirkwall are pleasant in the extreme. It wants only a good modern hotel to deserve the patronage of tourists, who, in these days, are told to “try Lapland,” when they have ample inducement to pass a summer in the “storm-swept Orcades,” and in other sections of the Scoto-Scandinavian archipelago.

On Friday, September 6, the “Jón Sigurðsson,” Captain Müller of whom more presently, made with some difficulty the Shetland Mainland. Many derivations are offered for the latter word, but, as the island is larger than all the rest put together, the obvious signification suffices.[318] A dark, thick fog had kept us drifting all night close to the dangerous rocks called Hivda Grind, Havre de Grind, or Hardegrind, originally Nafargrind, from Grind (a hedge-gate or sea-way), and, perhaps, Höfða (a head or bluff). Our position, some seven miles E.S.E. of Foula (Fugley) Island, explained the noise of the surf and the shallowing of water to thirty-two fathoms--it is far easier in these latitudes to hear than to see the land! The raw mist obscured the bold, grand scenery of the western coast till noon, when a sickly sun sublimed the vapours, reminding me of the Malabar coast after the Nilgherry Hills. Very mild was the Roost[319] or Race of Sumburgh, a Euripus, where nine currents are said to meet. We could distinctly sight Fitful[320] Head, and

“We saw the tide Break thundering on the rugged side Of Sumburgh’s awful steep.”

Its flank of clay-slate showed vast rivas (clefts) and stone-slips, while beyond it lay the skeleton of Jarlshof (Earl’s house), names now world-known. It is curious to trace how the practised eye and the wonderful memory which created our modern historical novel skimmed the very cream of Hjaltland peculiarities during a few days’ visit in August 1814, the year in which he published the Eyrbyggja Saga;[321] and it is fortunate for writing travellers that Sir Walter Scott did not visit the Færoes and Iceland. See what he did for the “Waverley Line” of Railway! Amongst the islanders he is a household word, but though the Troils of Papa Westræ do not object to Magnus Troil, they are still incensed by the portraiture of that “fiddling, rhyming fool,” poor Claud Halcro.

The approach to Bressey Sound, one of the finest ports in Great Britain, is unusually picturesque. On the right is the “Wart of Bressey”[322]--verrucose features are here common as in the Orkneys, but the word is the Icelandic “Varða,” and the German “Warte,” a watch-house. Its flanks are gashed for turf; and a goodly lighthouse is as much wanted on the dangerous western coast as on the Mediterranean shores of Africa. The island was lately sold, they say, for £20,000. On the left is the historic Knap or Knab (Hnapp meaning a button) of quartzose slate, backed by the quarries and the spreading town of Lerwick--mud bay. The (Arthur) Anderson Institute and the Widows’ Asylum reminded me of a Shetlander who began life as a clerk, became M.P. in 1847-52, and died the chairman of the great “P. & O.”--it is a pity that these fine establishments were not better endowed. The capital stands with its feet in the water; the houses, with their crow-stepped gables, being so built for convenience of smuggling, and its sons fondly compare it with cities on the Rhine. Half a dozen Dutch busses, riding in couples, now represent the hundreds of bygone days, when the British fisheries were called the “gold mine of Holland.” Certain features suggested modern Tiberias, but the disproportionate number of the churches soon weighed down that flight of fancy.

On the day after arrival, I set out with Captain Henry T. Ellis, R.N. (of “Hong-Kong to Manilla”), to do the tour _de rigueur_--Scalloway[323] Castle and Moseyaburgum, the Mousa (Mósey) Broch[324] or Pecht House. We took the excellent northern road, begun during the famine, and finished some four years ago (1870): formerly when a picnic was intended, gillies were sent on to smooth the way for riders. After a few yards, we left the fertile seaboard, whose skirts and smooths are, as in Iceland, the only sites for agriculture, and entered the normal type of country, which begins in Scotland and Ireland. There can be no better description of bog and moor, of hill-land or commonty, and of “moss, mount, and wilderness, quhairin are divers great waters,” than that which opens the first chapter of “Lord Kilgobbin,” the last work of that most amiable and sympathetic writer, whose unworthy successor I now am: “Some one has said that almost all that Ireland possesses of picturesque beauty is to be found on or in the immediate neighbourhood of the seaboard; and if we except some brief patches of river scenery on the ‘Nore’ and the ‘Blackwater,’ and a part of Lough Erne, the assertion is not devoid of truth. The dreary expanse called the Bog of Allen, which occupies a high table-land in the centre of the island, stretches away for miles, flat, sad-coloured, and monotonous, fissured in every direction by channels of dark-tinted water, in which the very fish take the same sad colour.” Similarly we read of Scotland: “The inland, the upland, the moor, the mountain, were really not occupied at all for agricultural purposes, or served only to keep the poor and their cattle from starving.”

The surface of this Irish Sliabh and Icelandic Heiði, a true “black country,” natural not artificial, rolls in low warty moors revetted with moss, spangled with Fífa, or cotton-grass (_Epilobium_, or _Eriophorum epistachion_), and gashed with deep black earth-cracks, showing the substrata of peat; the tarns and flowing waters are inky as the many Brazilian “Unas” (Blackwaters), and though strongly peat-flavoured, they are not unwholesome. I could not find that they had been used for tanning, nor have the people yet found out the value of the “peat-coal,” macerated condensed[325] peat, so long appreciated by the Grand Trunk of Canada and the railways of New England and Bavaria; even in the Brazil a patent for the manufactory was taken out some years ago, and Bahia now exports the article. Yet in Lyell’s “Principles of Geology” (11th edit., vol. ii., p. 504) we meet the strange assertion, “No peat found in Brazil.” The supply of the bog factories near Montreal costs nine shillings to ten shillings per ton, or about one-fourth the value of pit coal. The Torbite of Horwich (Lancashire) is even cheaper, and experts have said that it gets up steam to 10 lbs. pressure in one hour ten minutes, and to 25 lbs. in one hour thirty-two minutes--the figures of Lancashire coal being two hours twenty-five minutes and three hours--at any rate, we may believe that when water is excluded, its heating power is about half way between wood and coal. Thus it becomes an article of general value to brewers, distillers, and manufacturers; and the Swedish iron, equal to Low Moor, as well as the yield of the Bavarian, the Wurtemberg, and the Bohemian mines, are all treated with condensed peat. It is now time to utilise the vast bogs of the finest deep black fuel, in which Ireland and the Hebrides, the Shetlands and the Orkneys abound, especially when perpetual colliery strikes, causing coal famines and the immense rise in the value of the combustible, have made steamers lie idle in our ports. Truly Torf-Einarr Jarl, who first taught the art and mystery of “yarpha”-burning, deserves a memorial statue on the Torf-nes.

In such “sea-girdled peat-mosses” as these, agriculture is a farce, and only sheep can pay. The foundation of the rocks, snowy quartz veining grey and chloritic slate, is that of Minas Geraes, and yet crushing for gold has not, we were assured, been attempted. Dr Cowie informed me that copper and iron are now successfully worked near Sandwich; and I hope soon to hear of prospecting for the nobler metal. At present our African California, the Gold Coast itself, is not more thoroughly neglected.[326]

Shetland life is concentrated near the sounds and voes (the Vogr of Iceland), where the dykes of Galway and Roscommon, dry or mortared walls, enclose yellow fields of oats, barley, and potatoes black with frost. Churches, and manses bigger than the churches; kilns burning kelp and lime; substantial houses, thatched with barley-straw, upon “pones,” or slabs of dried turf, the whole kept in place by “simmins” (straw ropes), stones, and logs, dotted the lowlands. Here and there stood a few willows and maple-planes, erroneously called sycamores,[327] under the shelter of walls; and uncommonly pleasant after Iceland was the twitter of the birdies. Many broken and unroofed cottages, some of them leper-houses in bygone days, reminded us that the disease lingered longer in Scotland than in England; in the Scoto-Scandinavian islands than in Scotland; and in Iceland than in the “Eyjar.” The frequent ruined home-steads of small tenantry, compelled, when their land was “laid down to grazing,” to seek their fortunes elsewhere, are the salient features. The “murid” (murret) coloured Shetland sheep have now made way for Scotch intruders; the cattle are from Ayrshire; and English horses, not “cussers from Lanarkshire,” have taken the place of shelties. Ducks and geese are everywhere; skarfs and gulls are more numerous than the speckled cocks and hens; and salt-fish, which here is not sun-dried, lies piled, as in Iceland, upon the sands.

Much has been said in books[328] about the physical beauty of the Shetlanders, but neither of us could see it. There is a greater variety of race than in the islands farther north, but less, as might be expected, than in the Orkneys and Caithness. The blue eyes are milder than in Iceland, the long bright locks are the same, but the complexion is by no means so “pearl and pink”--perhaps its muddiness may result from peat-water. The blondes, as a rule, wear that faded and colourless aspect, which especially distinguishes the Slav race. The look is shy and reserved, and the voice is almost a whisper, as if the speaker were continually nervous: strangers notice this peculiarity even in society. _En revanche_, the women appear to be peculiarly industrious. They crowd Commercial Street during the Monday markets, and even when carrying their heavy “cassies,” “cassie-cazzies,” or crates of peat, which serve for “Ronin the Bee,” they spin yarn and knit “tree-ply stockings,” apparently not intended for their own naked feet. The Wadmel, or Wadmaal, the North of England Woadmel, here better known as “Shetland claith,” cannot, however, compare with that of Iceland; the texture is loose, and the stuff in the shops is evidently meant to sell, not to last.

After seeing the humble wonders of Scalloway Castle, we struck southwards and across the Mainland, where we could hire a boat for the Whalesback of Mousa. The leek-shaped Broch has a pair of romantic legends attached to it, but they are too modern for interest. This most perfect specimen of the seventy round towers[329] has been often described, but no one seems to have noticed the similarity of the double walls of the vaulted and many-storied bee-hive chambers, and of the other peculiarities, with those of the pre-historic Sardinian Nurhágghi. The “stepped domes” of dry stone, and the “concealments,” also reminded me much of similar features in outlying Syria. Some ill-conditioned party of “cheap-trippers,” or “devil’s-dust tourists,” has lately fired the secular moss which clothed the south-western wall. On the way back to Lerwick there is another ruin in Clickamin (also written Chickhamin) Lake: interesting as the means of comparison, it has an addition evidently more modern of extensive outworks, which Mousa Castle wholly wants.

Unfortunately for myself, I had not time to call upon the late Mr Thomas Edmonston of Buness, whose philological labours are so valuable to northern students;[330] and to tell unpleasant truth, I was somewhat surprised by the success of the nineteenth century in abolishing all the old hospitality. We inspected the contents of the dark little room, the anthropological collection of the Shetlands, which deserves a catalogue, and other comforts of civilised life. Many Hjaltlanders have never heard of it. The most interesting articles are the steatite pots from Unst, and the ceramic remains, guiltless of wheel, collected in the Brochs. There are also some rough “thunderbolts”--here the stone celt is considered, as by the ancient Greeks, to be an ἀστροπελέυς. Hence Claudian (fifth century) sings:

“Pyrenæisque sub antris Ignea flumineæ legere ceraunia nymphæ.”

We ran into Thorshafn (Færoes) on September 4, when a shower of rain had laid the fog. The “Isles of Sheep,” others say of “Feathers,” are evidently built like Iceland, with submarine trap; and the deep narrow “grips” between them, passages free from any danger except the “vortices,”[331] which can be seen, suggest that they have parted into long narrow fragments under the influence of subaërial cooling and contraction. The deep black strata appear peculiarly regular, as those of the western Fjörðs of Thule, streaked with lines of red ochre, spotted with white guano, and not showing, in this part at least, any signs of Palagonite or sea-sand. The leaf-shaped valleys, the water-falls, and the natural arches, are familiar to us after “Snowland;” the shallow turf lies upon the steepest inclines, and not unfrequently it is torn off by the frantic wind with as much ease as a rug is rolled up.

The course lay abreast of Mygganaes (Midge Naze),[332] with its head to the south, and projecting a long low tail cut by a “coupé,” like that of Sark. We then opened Waagoe (voe islet), so called because imbedded in the greater Stromoe. At the southern end, where once whales abounded, as may be seen in prints of 1844, many “Battles of the Summer Islands” were fiercely waged. We pass Gaasholm, Tind-holm, or Peak Island, a slice of rock with jagged uplifted edge, here a common feature, the Koltar (Coulter), which passably represents its name, and Hestoe the horse-eyot. The latter is a common Scandinavian name for a feature with a long straight dorsum, ready as it were for the saddle--witness the Horse of “Copinshay” (Kolbeins-ey): the hunchbacks are mostly called “hogs,” and the smaller outliers “calves.” The normal shape is a quoin, bluff to north or east, and sloping with a regular green incline to the water. There is no snow; the hay crop has been got in, and the settlements are villages, not Bærs or detached farms. We ran within easy sight of Kirkjubæ, which stands well out from its adjacent hovels; it is the last Roman Catholic building in the islands, and the “Reformation” left its sturdy walls unroofed. Visitors speak of an iron plate imbedded in its masonry, and supposed to denote treasure, which is not likely. The old Church still keeps up a mission-house and chapel at Thorshafn, but we found the building void of priests.

Whilst the “haaf,” or outer sea, was calm as a lake, a cold and furious southerly wind, the gift of the funnel between Sandoe and Stromoe, blew in our faces, and when we had turned the southern point of the latter, it again met us from the north-east. The capital Thorshafn is a small heap of houses, or rather boxes strewed “promiscuous” on the ground, and a large white church, whose belfry is adorned with a gilt ball and a profusion of crosses. It has, however, a literary dean, and, better still, a library. The site of the settlement is a spit of rock dividing the harbour into a northern and a southern “hop”--the latter being generally preferred. A green flag floating over a shed near the fort denotes the quarantine station; planked boat-houses figure conspicuously, and the roofs are more grassy even than in Iceland. Willows, elder-trees, and currant-bushes, looking gigantic after the stunted vegetation farther north, flourish in sheltered spots, especially near the well-bridged brook in the southern part of the city. Along the dorsum of the spit runs an upper road with a small central square, looking as if a single house had been pulled down to make room. Huge boulders have not disappeared from the thoroughfares, and the latter are the most crooked and irregular of any that claim to be in Europe; narrow, steep, and steppy--- narrower than Malta, steeper than ramps at “Gib,” and steppy like Dalmatian towns, for instance Curzola and Lésina: in places they are supplied with hand-rails.

The people are remarkably English in appearance, and perhaps an easy reason may be found for the resemblance. They appear rather shy than the reverse, and they notably lack Hazlitt’s “Scotch stare.” The women show the bloom of infinite delicacy that characterises the complexion of Iceland. The men, who unwisely shave their faces, still affect the picturesque island-dress, a peculiar-shaped cap of dark colour with thin blue or red stripes, long brown jacket, knee breeches of Wadmal, long stockings, and untanned spartelles, or “chumpers,” the wooden-soled clogs of “Lankyshire.”

We called on Hr Sysselmand Müller, and we left the Færoes with a conviction that its capital is one of the “slowest” places now in existence: the only possible excitement would be to buy a 560-fathom “fowl-rope,”[333] and to dangle like the samphire-gatherer of dreadful trade over the bird-precipices. “In a rope’s end between earth and heaven, with the blue sky above you, and below you the still bluer sea tumbling, between which two you swing to and fro like a pendulum,” one might secure a novel sensation to take the place of many an _illusion perdue_. A St Bartholomew’s Day of a hundred and fifty whales, a massacre headed by the parson and the schoolmaster, must also have its charms, but these events are unhappily waxing rare.

NOTE ON STONE IMPLEMENTS AND OTHER PRE-HISTORIC REMAINS FOUND IN THE SHETLAND ISLANDS. BY THE LATE ROBERT COWIE, M.A., M.D.

Of the pre-historic weapons of warfare, or implements of domestic economy, which have been found in the Shetland Islands, by far the most numerous and important are the stone implements. These naturally divide themselves into two classes, viz., the _polished_ and the _rude_. First let us speak of the polished stone implement, celt, steinbarte, battle-axe head, or “thunderbolt.” This implement has, for centuries, been an object of search, not only for the antiquary and the collector of curiosities, but for the native peasantry--the latter class regarding it with superstitious awe, as a sort of household god, who brings luck to the family that is fortunate enough to possess it. They term it the “thunderbolt,” from a belief--everywhere found and dating from all times--that the weapon has come down from the sky during a thunderstorm. These “celts,” or steinbartes, as they are generally termed in scientific language, again divide themselves into two varieties, viz. (1.) the single-edged steinbarte and (2.) the double-edged steinbarte.

1. The single-edged steinbarte, which is by far the most common, is thus very accurately described by Dr Hibbert, in his excellent work on Shetland: “This variety of blade has one cutting edge, generally of a semilunar outline, and tapering from opposite points to a blunted extremity or heel. In some specimens both sides are convex; in others one side only, the other being flattened. All the edges except the broad sharpened margin are bluntly rounded off. The single-edged stone-axes of Shetland vary much in their dimensions, being from four to eight or ten inches in length; their breadth proportionately differing. When the Shetland steinbarte was used in war, its blunt tapering extremity may be supposed to have been introduced within the perforation made into some wooden or bone haft, and afterwards secured by overlapping cords, formed of thongs of leather, or the entrails of some animal; twine of hemp not being then in use.”

From considerable personal observation, I can testify to the accuracy of the above description, except that there appears to be in these instruments greater variety in size than that indicated by the learned Doctor; the largest single-headed steinbarte in the Lerwick Museum being 14½ inches long by 4½ inches at the broadest point, and the smallest 4½ inches long by 2½ inches at the broadest point.

Continuing the paragraph just quoted, Dr Hibbert says: “Another kind of steinbarte has been said to occur in Shetland, the sharp edge of which describes the segment of a circle, whilst the chord of the outline is thickened like the back of a knife. Probably its blunt edge was fixed within the groove of a wooden or bone handle, so as to form a single-edged cutting instrument.” This peculiar variety must have been very rare indeed, for no one appears to have seen it since the days of the Rev. Mr Low of Orkney, who wrote exactly a century ago.

2. The double-edged steinbarte is described as follows by Dr Hibbert: “The blade of this instrument is a stone completely flattened on each of its sides, and not more than the tenth of an inch thick; it is of an oblong shape, having one blunted margin perfectly straight, and, with the stone in such a position that the dull edge is the uppermost, we have the form of a blade presented, in which the two narrow edges are irregularly rounded off at their angles, so that one edge is much broader than the other. Every part of the margin but that which constitutes the summit of the outline is sharpened; by which means there is a great addition made to the extent of the cutting edge. The blade is 5½ inches long, and from 3 to 4 broad.” This description does not correspond with the specimens I have been able to examine. If they are to be considered fair specimens, I would describe the so-called double-edged steinbarte thus: An oblong flat piece of porphyry, serpentine, or some similar stone, 5 or 6 inches long by 4 or 5 broad, and about a third or a fourth of an inch thick, with a thin sharp edge all round.

These instruments, many of which are very beautiful both as regards form and polish, are generally formed of a peculiarly compact green porphyry or of serpentine. They have been found in most of the districts of Shetland, particularly in the parishes of Unst, Delting, Wells, and Sandsting. The situations and numbers in which they have been found, also present great variety. Some have been taken out of ancient stone coffins, others found inside of or near to old “burghs,” while many have been dug up in the common--some near the surface and others several feet beneath it.[334] Most of them have been found singly, but in many instances large collections of such weapons have been discovered. Thus, in one instance, twenty-four of them were found in one spot, in another eight, and in a third seven, the last-mentioned series being arranged in the form of a circle.

Polished stones having the shape of spear-heads have also been found in Shetland, but very rarely. They are said to be about four inches long, having a groove apparently for receiving a wooden shaft.

Flint arrow-heads, although frequently dug up in Orkney, have not yet, as far as I can learn, been found in Shetland.

2. THE RUDE STONE IMPLEMENTS.

While the polished archaic stone implements have been known during a long period of modern history, the rude or unpolished have only very recently been discovered, or at all events recognised; and for this discovery we are chiefly indebted to the late Dr James Hunt, London; Dr Arthur Mitchell, Edinburgh; and Mr George Petrie, Kirkwall, who conducted archæological explorations in Shetland in the summer of 1865. Vast quantities of such articles must from time to time have been turned up by the peasantry; but it is only about this period they appear to have been recognised--a circumstance somewhat curious considering the many searches during a long series of years, made for relics of pre-historic times, by various accomplished antiquaries. These rough instruments present great variety both as to shape and size. Let us endeavour to indicate the chief types.

1. We have the club-like form, which is well illustrated by the accompanying copies of Dr Mitchell’s excellent paper on the subject.[335] This implement is generally of large size; one specimen measuring 21 inches by 2½ inches at the greatest breadth, and weighing 6¾ lbs.; another is 20 inches long, 5 or 6 in diameter, but attains the great weight of 14 lbs. Many of the small forms found in the collections to be described appear to be fragments of this larger implement.

2. Next in importance comes a long, narrow, flattish stone--“from 11 inches by 3 inches, to 6 inches by 1½--thinned and somewhat rounded at each end.” Stones of this variety, which are very numerous in the collections already made, present a remarkable similarity. (See Fig. 2.)

(3.) The third type, which is illustrated by Fig. 3, is “a broad, flat stone, showing a tendency to be pointed at one end.” Dr Mitchell considers most of these stones fragments of larger implements; but two entire specimens of this type are to be found in a good collection made by Mr Umphray, of Raewick Shetland. The great majority of the rude stone implements found in Shetland belong to one or other of the types above briefly noticed; but we have still one or two less common varieties.

(4.) The fourth type, of which I have not been able to see a specimen, is described by Dr Mitchell as “a water-worn stone, 10 to 12 inches long, more or less cylindrical, but tapering at the ends.”

(5.) The fifth variety, illustrated by Fig. 4, is a curious and very interesting spud-like instrument, of which only a few specimens have been yet found.

We next have three or four very rare and exceptionable varieties. The first of these is a cylindrical and apparently water-shaped stone, well worn at each end, as if it had been used as a pestle in crushing corn, or for some such domestic purpose (Fig. 5); the second a “flat, four-sided stone, 5 inches long, 3 inches wide, and 1½ inches thick,” with a groove on each of the long sides, so as to give it a constricted appearance; and the third a piece of sandstone, or some such stone, with an oval cup-like hollow in it.

These curious implements, thus briefly enumerated, have been found in various districts of Shetland, notably in the parishes of Sandsting, Walls, Dunrossness, and Unst. It is interesting to note the different positions in which they have been found--_e.g._, (1.) On the surface of the ground; (2.) in curious subterranean structures; (3.) in the heart of a large tumulus; (4.) on the outside of stone coffins with urns in them; and (5.) in the inside of a Kistvaen with a skeleton and a well-polished celt.[336]

Most of them are composed of sandstone, but a few of clay slate, or of micaceous schist. They apparently have been shaped chiefly by flaking, but in some instances also by picking.

In connection with these archaic implements, three questions naturally arise: By _whom_, _when_, and _for what purpose_ were they formed? Were I able, this is not the place to discuss such difficult and important questions. On excavating “burghs” and opening tumuli, such pre-historic remains as fragments of rude pottery, pieces of charred wood, and teeth and broken pieces of bones of animals, are frequently discovered.

LERWICK, ZETLAND, _24th March 1873_.