Foula 1880

Situated some fifteen miles a little to the south-west from Vaila Sound, Foula (Fugloe), in all probability the Ultima Thule of Agricola's legionaries, is undoubtedly for its size one of the most interesting islands in British seas, if not the most interesting.

Formerly looked upon as nearly as inaccessible as St. Kilda, owing to there being no regular postal communication with the Mainland, Foula, like Fair Isle, now has, wind and weather permitting, a regular fortnightly mail, which is conveyed to the island by one of Messrs. Garriock and Co.'s smacks from Reawick, by which smack the would-be visitor could be landed on the island and if willing, to spend a fortnight or so— revelling in the finest, St. Kilda perhaps only excepted, rock scenery in Britain, observing the habits of the various sea-fowl, which during the breeding season frequent the western side in countless numbers, or sitting down at a respectful distance, glass in hand, watching the aerial antics of the Scoutie Allan, or the graver " sentry go" of the more lordly Bonxie, and all the time inhaling the purest air going—can return in the smack to the port whence he embarked. To those however, whose time is limited, Walls is by far the best starting-point, as with an easterly, or even a good "sojer's," wind the island can be reached in a fourareen in three hours or so, and with a sixareen in half an hour less. In addition, if the wind should fail you, not an impossibility in June or July, you have the oars to fall back on, and need not go drifting about like " A painted ship upon a painted ocean," at the mercy of the tide. By writing to Mr. James Garriock, of Reawick, the factor for the Melby Estate, you could ascertain whether you could obtain permission to occupy the rooms reserved at Mr. Peterson's, close to the landing-place at Ham, for members of the Melby family or Mr. Garriock, and which consist of a sitting-room with one box bed in it, and a smaller closet with similar accommodation. Failing the factor's house you might get accommodation at the Congregational Manse, but it would be as well to ascertain in Walls as to this before starting. Take meat, bread, and whatever liquids you may require, as the island larder will probably be limited to fish, eggs, and perhaps poultry, and bear in mind the hint already given in connection with Fair Isle. Take also well nailed boots, as the grass is sometimes so dry and the heather so short, that with plain soles you slip all over the place, and at the end of a day's walking find the said soles polished as smooth as glass. The difficulty as a rule is not in getting to Foula, as no one who was not an idiot would think of starting unless the weather looked favourable, but in getting stuck on the island for many days, perhaps weeks. In most summers however, there is not much danger in June and July of finding yourself confined there beyond a few days at the outside. When about half-way across, the water begins to shoal, and even in the smoothest weather there is a certain amount of sharp, jerking, roly-poly motion, that in bad weather is apt to become a short, chopping, dangerous sea. This is caused by the tide flowing over what is known as the Foula Banks, one of the best cod-grounds in the islands. One cannot fancy any one attempting to cross the stretch of water that intervenes between the Mainland and Foula single-handed, and yet a poor insane woman did so from Dale some thirty years ago. As soon as her absence was perceived, and the boat she had taken missed, a sixareen was at once sent in pursuit, as it was known she was always yearning to reach the island. She was not caught till she was just off Ham Geo. What made it the more remarkable, she is said to have had only one oar, and this she must have used against the north-going tide till, when half across, the south tide swept her on to the island. The hardest part of the story is, that her pursuers or rescuers once they had caught her, whilst landing themselves, would not allow her to do so, though it was the one end and object of her poor crazed mind. Now to give some description of the island before landing. Seen from the east, and when halfway across from Vaila Sound, the island has a very serrated appearance. In the extreme south you have the (comparatively) low-lying land that forms the South Ness; then the somewhat blunted top of the Noup (803 feet), springing apparently out of which, though in reality a glen called Wester Dahl intervenes between them, comes Hamnafield with its shapely accentuated peak (1,126 feet), above which appears the equally pointed summit of the Sneug (1,372 feet), towering over its satellites, then the Kaim (1,220 feet), the highest cliff-point on the island, below which stretches a comparatively level ridge known as the North Banks and terminating in Soberley (721 feet), under which again, is a much shorter plateau ending in Easter Haevdi (Icelandic hofdi, a head), (253 feet), close to which are seen the Friar Stacks, the finest of which, the Gada Stack, would anywhere else be looked upon as a very fine rock, but here seems dwarfed into insignificance. According to Captain Veitch, R.E. [Memoirs Wernerian Society vol. iv. P. 237], Foula is three miles and a fifth in length from north to south, whilst from east to west it measures two miles and a-half in the broadest part; the general outline of the island on the map being not unlike that of Africa. It is almost equally divided into hill-ground and low-land, the hill portion commencing with the Noup and with only the break of Wester Dahl extending to Easter Haevdi, whilst the flat, or comparatively speaking flat, ground extends along the eastern side from the South Ness to Strom Ness and is bounded by a cliff line of which Darga Ness (127 feet), North Haevdi (146 feet), Mid Haevdi (130 feet), and South Haevdi (107 feet) are the highest points. Unlike Fair Isle, which is indented with geos innumerable, Foula has comparatively few, the principal landing-place being at Ham in a very small creek, a little to the south of which is the bight of Ham Little, where vessels discharging goods anchor when weather permits. A short distance up the little valley west of Ham, on the shores of which is the house of the resident factor, Mr. Peterson, is the new school-house lately erected by the School Board of Walls, under whose educational sway the island comes. About three-quarters of a mile south of the school is the Congregational Chapel and Manse, whilst the Established Church lies on the south-west side of Ham Town, the most cultivated and thickly populated portion of the island situated in the extreme south. Curiously enough the population has risen from 257 in 1871, to 267 in 1881, an increase of over a hundred since Captain Veitch's visit. Although marrying very much in and in amongst themselves, only four women not natives of Foula having married into the island for forty years, the evil effects of such in-and-in breeding do not show to the extent that might otherwise have been anticipated. The families as a rule are said to be small, and couples without incumbrances more common than on the Mainland. They very rarely leave the island, and if they do, hardly ever return, and to this cause probably the increase in population is chiefly due. Almost all belong to the Congregational body, and the few who still stick to the Established Church are ministered to by a reader. Foula was the last place in the islands where the old Norse survived, and Low took down phonetically from the lips of William Henry of Guttorm, a ballad of thirty-five stanzas describing the lives of an Earl of Orkney and the daughter of a King of Norway. He also found that though the inhabitants knew little about the rest of Europe they had "Norwegian transactions at their fingers' ends." You would therefore naturally expect in an island like Foula to see the fair-haired Norse type very marked, and the writer was astonished at finding fully half the children at the school quite dark-haired and with almost swarthy complexions, the exact opposite to what he found in Fair Isle, where, if the Spanish tradition has anything in it, he ought to have noticed it. Seven sixareens fish from the island, and the Foulaese have the reputation of being the finest boatmen in the islands. They get cod principally, and also a good many saith in the rapid tideways around the Havre de Grind reef a few miles to the eastward. Low was charmed with the people, and Veitch, who spent twenty-two days encamped on the Sneug, contrasted them very favourably, physically and morally, with the Fair Islanders, saying, " In Fair Isle the natives are in general half-starved and ill-clothed, even squalid and unhealthy, and have a look of savage apathy. In Foula, the reverse is the case: in every respect the inhabitants seem much at their ease, are decently clothed, and are of a cheerful, inquisitive character. Indeed I met no peasantry in Shetland to equal them. Their frank, free disposition, simple primitive manners, render them a very amiable people." Veitch came to the conclusion that smuggling was the cause of the difference in a great measure, and yet, if local traditions are to be trusted, cargoes were now and then landed on Foula. As soon as you are ashore, if weather permits, engage a boat to explore the western side of the island, as it is not every day you are able to do so, and it is as well to take the first opportunity. There is nothing much to interest you till you come to the North Bank, a furious rush of tideway off Strom Ness, the northern point of the island. Here, calm as the sea may be elsewhere, the mere strength of the tide sends the white horses leaping over the baas, which with a setting sun bring out the most beautiful prismatic effects, as you plunge into what for a short distance appears like a huge seething caldron. Clear of this you cross War Wick, and come to Hura Wick or North Wick, from the further end of which two boats fish, and a nice wild exposed fishing-station it is too.

Here the Friar Stacks come in sight, the easternmost one of which, called the Stack of the Brough from the ruins of an old broch on its summit, is connected with the shore. Then the Sheepey Stack, a little distance out, inside of which, though further west, is the Gada Stack, by far the most picturesque one of the three. This, which Professor Heddle [Mineralogical Magazine, vol. iii. p. 46.] compares to a dog sitting on its haunches, with fore-legs stiffened and head erect, is from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet in height, and runs from north-west to south-east. Right through the rock is a magnificent arch extending nearly to the summit, and the south-west side is pierced by a circular window. Guillemots occupy the upper portions of this grand hall, and kittiwakes in hundreds breed below. Next you come to Trolli Geo, and then to Selchie Geo, a glorious amphitheatre of reddish brown rock which gets its name from the quantity of seals that in former years frequented its rocks and skerries. Easter Haevdi, the western extremity of Selchie Geo, is pierced from east to west by an arch, the mouth of which on the eastern side is like the muzzle of a huge bell-mouthed blunderbus. This arch is known as Kittiwake Hall, and in Veitch's day was the only breeding-place on the island of those birds. It is not so at the present day; still so numerous were they, when the writer was there in 1880, that the air seemed as if filled with gigantic snowflakes. Here the really sublime panorama of the western side of Foula may be said to commence, opening with the North Banks, not quite a mile of cliff-face ranging from 698 feet to 842 feet. A magnificent range of cliff it is too, with a face here lichen-covered, there inter-spersed with grassy ledges, favourite breeding spots of the puffins. In former times it is said the North Banks were regularly divided amongst the crofters, each of whom had, as it were, so much frontage. Low [Low's Tour, p. 98.], in speaking of the sea-fowl of Foula, says:

" Neither the Fulmar, Great Auk, nor the Solan build here, which is something surprising. It is the number, not the variety that amazes one, and indeed all the flights I had before seen were nothing to this; as far as the eye.can stretch, the whole precipice swarms, the sea around is covered, and the air in perpetual motion, flocking either to or from the rock. This puts one in mind of a capital city to which the whole kingdom resorts once in a year ; here they are in perpetual motion, to and again passing and repassing, going and returning; everything is noise and uproar, bustle and hurry reigns, e\-ery creature attentive to the great law of nature hasting to perform its function before the return of winter, when it knows it must take its departure. All birds except shags and cormorants, leave Foula in winter, as I was assured by all the inhabitants."

The puffins are the most numerous, and from their building nearest the summit are the birds whose nests are most harried. Low [Low’s Tour p. 104.] thus describes the mode adopted in his day: " Their methods of getting at the wild-fowl and their eggs are very dangerous. I observed in many places a stake stuck about six inches into the bank, and this in many places so rotten as to fly all to pieces with a slight blow; and in all so loose as to shake with the least touch of one's foot; nay, they often strike the blade of a small dagger they usually wear, into the ground, and throwing a noose of a fishing-cord over any of these, slip down without the least apprehension of danger. They give however a very pretty good account of the matter ; they tell us they never trust too much to the rope nor the stake, that there is little strain either on one or the other when once they have got a footing on the rock, and they depend more on their own climbing. But with. all this there are frequent instances of their perishing, and few who make this a practice for life die a natural death."

So matter of course was it for a man to be killed on the Banks, that the regular saying was— "His gutcher (grandfather) guid before, his father guid before, and he must expect to go over the Sneug too;" and if one man wanted to insult another he said, " My father died like a man on the banks; yours like a dog in his bed." [Hibbert's Shetland Isles, p. 588.] There have been, it is said, no cliff accidents of late years, which, considering the modus operandi is the same it was in Low's day, is something wonderful. Somewhere at the southern end of these cliffs is a spot discoloured with iron ore, which is said to have given rise to the local legend of there being a carbuncle under the Kaim. The Kaim is, if one may use the phrase, double-jointed, the Little Kaim being a projecting ledge about half-way up, which, if anything, overhangs the water. The steepest portion of the cliff, to which the term Kaim is applied, is 82°, or 8° off perpendicular. This in a cliff-face of 1,121 feet is not bad, and from the water you cannot tell that it is not perpendicular. Somewhere about the Little Kaim was for many years the breeding-place of a pair of ernes or white-tailed eagles, but they have deserted it for some time past It is said the young birds remained with the old ones till the following spring, when they were driven away to start an establishment of their own, and Saxby [Saxby's Birds, p. 6.] remarks on the celerity with which, if the female be shot during the breeding season, the male bird contrives to get a new mate. In the bight between the Kaim and Nebbefield (1,020 feet), and which is known as the Geo of Rogar, is a curiously shaped stack called the Stab, which, from one point of view looks like a sphinx, and from another is absurdly like a barrister wigged and gowned in the act of yawning. Nebbefield is very fine, the outline being very sharply defined, and the sweep round to Wester Haevdi is very grand, though the cliffs fall off in size at Wester Hoevdi, being only 486 feet. At the northern end of this bight at the water's edge are a lot of huge cyclopean boulders known as the Scrud Herdins. So deep however is the water here, that the writer was told of a person, whose boat was actually touching the rocks, catching cod on a hand-line in fifteen fathom water. The stratification of Nebbefield is very marked and uniform.

In the centre of this bight, in fact in the very oxter, is a very fine cave, in which thousands of kittiwakes breed. On rounding Wester Hoevdi you have another grand, in fact the grandest, sweep round to the red cliffs of the Noup. At the northern end stretch, next the water, a long range of cliffs, known as the Muckleberg, gradually tapering down from 635 feet to 219 feet, above which comes a vast expanse of treacherous grassy slope known as Ufshins, the most dangerous spot in the island, and where it is said more deaths have occurred to fowlers than anywhere else. Above Ufshins is another cliff wall, known as the Heads of Hamar, the summit of which is not far below the Sneug. At the southern end of Muckleberg you come to the western end of Wester Dahl, in which is a curious crevice or fissure, known as the Sneck of Smalie, about, according to Professor Heddle, 300 yards long, 100 feet deep, and 6 feet wide at the top, though broader below. Somewhere hereabouts occurred one of the few wrecks that have occurred at Foula—so different in this respect from Fair Isle—that of a brig named the Ceres, of Belfast All the crew were lost except one man, named Samuel Black, who, it is said, when the ship struck, jumped from the bowsprit on to the rock, and scrambling up with the greatest difficulty, was found in a state of insensibility on the top by a man who had come for peats. Though the Noup, like that of Noss, slopes backwards, the precipitous slope extends, according to Professor Heddle, to nearly the summit, being 795 feet. The Noup, to follow out Low's simile of the birds coming up to the capital for the season, may be termed the Hotel des Lyres, or the town-house of the Manx Shearwaters. The Rooeskie (484 feet), which probably owes its name to its red rock, is, overhanging as it does in places, a magnificent cliff, and may be said to terminate the rock glories of Foula, as immediately after it the rock face is no higher than 173 feet Having come thus far under the cliff-line from Easter Haevdi, instead of pulling home to Ham round the South Ness, have the boat pulled a mile or so out to seaward, and then, keeping that distance from the island till you reach Strom Ness, return the way you came. This will enable you to realise the sky line, which when pulling close under the cliffs you are unable to do. The writer is only sorry he was unable to do so himself when there, as his companion was so tired out from the effects of something like nine hours' open boat-work, as to compel them to get back as soon as possible.

There is practically only one way of ascending the hills and making the circuit, so far as it can be made, of the western cliff-line, and that is from the south. A Foula man, or a member of the Alpine Club, might think nothing of making the round from north to south, but for ordinary pedestrians it would be out of the question. Walking up the little valley past the school-house, and round the picturesque mill Loch of Ham, you strike the lower end of the main ridge or back-bone of Hamnafield. It is a stae brae, but otherwise not difficult walking. About two hundred yards before you reach the cairn on the apex of Hamnafield is a heap of stones said to cover the Lum of Liorafield, first mentioned by Brand and then by Low [Low's Tour, p. 115.], who, however, was not allowed to see it, " from a superstitious notion among the people that he who opens the Hole of Liorafield the first time he is in the island dies immediately after, and this was the only thing I could find them sly in." Veitch was told that it descends perpendicularly to the level of the sea, and is then connected with the ocean by a subterraneous passage; and the Foulaese alleged, in support of this, that a sheep pursued by a dog precipitated itself into the Lum, and was followed by the dog ; both being afterwards found by the mouth of a small cave on the sea-shore. As the top of the Lum can be very little short of 1,100 feet, that sheep and that dog must have mastered, and that thoroughly, what Assheton Smith called the whole art of falling. The Ordnance cairn on the crest of Hamnafield is used as the hamlet clock, when the sun is over it announcing six o'clock in the evening to the people of Ham. Descending from Hamnafield, you ascend another ridge, known as Townie-field, which brings you to the Sneug. It is, unfortunately, rarely during summer months without a nightcap of fog or mist, and even if the summit is free, there is generally a haze on the sea which prevents your getting any view of the Mainland. Low, who was on the island for seven days in July 1774, never once saw Shetland proper; and, out of the twenty-two days spent by Veitch's party encamped on the Sneug, seventeen are recorded in their weather register as more or less foggy. Veitch thus describes the view when the atmosphere is clear:—

"From the summit of the Snuke, the highest and central peak of the ridge, an extensive view of Shetland is obtained, the Ossa Skerry, a remarkably detached rock, and Ronas Hill, forming interesting features on the left of the scene, while Fitfull Head and Fair Isle, objects of no less interest, terminate the view on the right hand, including a space of about seventy miles chiefly occupied by the Mainland of Shetland. In very fine weather five hills in Orkney may be descried, appearing like clouds on the horizon, but to the naked eye giving no clue to their identities. From these hills, however, the island of Foula assumes an appearance not to be mistaken. Its precipitous west end, as seen from Westra, in Orkney, a distance of seventy miles, forms a striking object."

Foula and Unst are now the only two spots in Britain where the Lestris Cataractes, or Great Skua, still breeds; and it is to be feared, if the depredations of the egg-stealing fraternity, instigated by the demand afforded for their stolen goods by the closet-school of naturalists, are not soon stopped, this rarest of British birds must shortly become as extinct as the Greater Bustard or the Great Auk—at least, so far as this kingdom is concerned. That at one time they bred on most of the lofty hills in Shetland there can be little doubt. The Bonxie Hill, south of Quarff, was probably one of their haunts, as Bonxie is the name by which the bird is generally known in Shetland, though in Unst they are called Skooi. Rooeness Hill was occupied by them within the memory of living men, and to a well-known naturalist from the Orkneys is said to be due the credit of their extermination there, he having encamped on the hill till he shot them all down — an easy job, as during the breeding season bolder birds do not exist They arrive in Shetland, according to Saxby, about the end of April, and remain till the middle of August, when old and young leave for other climes.

Measuring [Macgillivray's Manual, pt. ii. p. 255.] about 22 inches from end of beak to tip of tail, and 52 inches across the wings, the bonxie is a somewhat heavy bird, weighing, according to Low [Low's Tour, p. 101.], 3 Ibs. o oz. 4 drs., and armed with a powerful bill, measuring 2\ inches from base to tip, and which, like the talons and web of the feet, is a deep black; general colour of the bird a deep brown-black, with a conspicuous white patch on the wings. The tail is spread out fan-fashion when flying. The eggs are said to be similar to those of some of the gulls, whose eggs are sometimes sold for those of the skuas. The young birds, in the downy stage, look not unlike young goslings, and the contrast between the deep black of the neb and feet, and the greenish-yellow of the rest of the bird, is very marked. You are not allowed to approach their breeding-place with impunity; the moment you appear to be approaching the nest, the parent bird charging you with a rush. Sheep, dogs, and ponies too, if found wandering about the tabooed ground, at once get notice " to get out of that" Owing to their driving off all other raptorial birds, they were at one time specially preserved in Foula, a fine of i6s. 8d. sterling (a big sum in those days) being levied, in Low's time, on any one who shot them or destroyed their eggs. They get their living chiefly by making the greater gulls hand over, and, according to Saxby, robbing the nests of the other gulls. In Faroe they are said to attack the lambs, but this is stated never to be the case in Shetland. If taken from the nest they are easily reared, and become very tame. In Veitch's day they all bred on the Sneug, and he estimated their numbers at thirty pair. A few years back they were nearly exterminated by the gunning cads ; and, had not the late Dr. Robert C. T. Scott, R.N., of Melby, come to the rescue, they would have become extinct, so far as Foula is concerned. At the present day probably fifteen pair may breed on the island, a few still on the Sneug, but the majority at the back of the Kaim. Whilst waiting on Townie-field for the mist to clear one evening, the writer saw a most beautiful aerial coursing match. A couple of Scoutie Allans came past in chase of a bonxie, who, thinking he might shake off his persecutors, kept circling round the writer and his guide, and so close that the smack of the allan's wing as he stooped for the bonxie could be heard distinctly. As a rule, when the allan stooped, the bonxie made a sort of half turn upwards, upon which scoutie shot up like a rocket, leaving his companion to take up the running, or rather flying, and wait upon the bonxie. One word before saying good-bye to the bonxie; no eggs of the Great Skua offered for sale in Shetland can have been honestly obtained, as the proprietors both of the Melby and Buness estates forbid their being taken. Any one, therefore, buying the eggs, is a receiver of stolen goods. From the Sneug you descend by the very steep grassy slopes of Hannerley to the back of the Kaim, and had better descend from there to the end of Wester Haevdi, from whence the view of Muckleberg, Ufshins, and the whole sweep round to the Noup is very fine. Nebbefield, towering wall-like above you, and with its clearly-defined cliff line, looks grand from Wester Haevdi. So glorious are the views, that you do not regret the something like seven hundred feet of very stiff climbing it takes you to get back to where the pinnacle of the Kaim shoots up. Professor Heddle says [Mineralogical Magazine, vol. iii. P.47.], "The manner in which the summit of the Kaim towers lighthouse-like above sea and land surpasses anything the writer has seen, excepting the Myling Head, in Faroe." You descend from the Kaim by as steep a slope as Hannerley, and one which had better be negotiated in zigzags, if you do not want to come a cropper. When down, walk out to the southern end of the North Banks, here about 842 feet high, whence you get perhaps the best view obtainable, from land, of both the Kaim and the Little Kaim. Then along the North Banks, till you reach a very fine projecting cliff, called Simon's Head, where you can see the puffins in hundreds on the grassy ledges, and from the summit of which you get a capital view of Easter Haevdi, Kittiwake Hall, and the Stacks of the Logat. The descent from Soberley is not so bad as that of Hannerley and the north side of the Kaim, and once at the foot you realise along what vast cliffs you have been walking.

On your way home you pass through the principal breeding place on the island, at the present day, of the Lestris Parasiticus, Richardson's Skua, or Scoutie Allan, a bird which for pure, sheer devilment of character cannot be surpassed in the whole feathered race, nor a more interesting one to study, nor a handsomer one. Measuring [Macgillivray's Manual, p. 257.] 21 inches from tip of beak to tip of tail, and 42 inches from wing to wing, it is a very much lighter bird than the bonxie, and, according to Saxby [Saxby's Birds, p. 358.],weighs little more than a pigeon. With a very hawk-like appearance when at rest, the adult birds vary very much in colour, some being blackish-brown on the upper parts and white on the belly; others with rusty bellies; others, again, with speckled bellies. The Foula theory is that the pure white-bellied specimens are the adult birds, and that the others are in the scorie stage. When you approach the nest, the bird "on duty for the day" commences tumbling over on the ground, now as if it had a broken wing, now as if every joint in its body were dislocated ; and altogether goes through a course of general fooling to lure you away from the nest. Once at a safe distance from the eggs, or young ones, the tactics change, and the bird does its best to make things unpleasant. Generally speaking, it attacks you from the rear, and the first notice you have is the swish of its wings as it grazes your head, with a rush like a rocket. Occasionally, however, it charges fairly and squarely from the front, and then you see the whole onslaught. Taking a small semicircular sweep, like the one, two, three steps of a fast bowler, it comes down on you with all the velocity of the cricket-ball from the arm of such bowler; and, unless you duck your head, it may be unable to change its direction and come full butt at you. One killed itself against a gun Captain Veitch held up, and so great was the momentum of the bird that it dashed its brains out. Had the bonxie a similar velocity proportionate to its greater weight and size, it would assuredly kill any one it struck on the head.

Unlike the bonxie, the scoutie allan apparently cannot be reared in confinement. They do all right at first, but seem to die after a few months' captivity. The writer sent seven in 1880 up to "the Zoo"; but, though they arrived in Regent's Park in splendid condition, they only survived about three months, notwithstanding the authorities were specially anxious to rear them, to settle the much-vexed question as to the plumage. The young birds, when clear of the fluffy stage are very handsome, being barred across the wings like woodcock. Close to the scoutie ground, or rather their principal nesting-place at the present day, as they seem to breed all over the island, is a small black peaty hole, from which the natives get the earth for making a black dye (mentioned ante, p. 440), and which earth must be obtained at a particular time of tide to be of any good. The roots of the plant employed to fix the dye are sometimes used medicinally. After being carefully washed, they are chopped up very fine and then boiled, when the liquor is strained through a cloth, and finally bottled with a little whisky, to make it keep. It is given in half-teacupful doses, and is said to beat Peruvian bark out of sight as a tonic. To do the whole hill and cliff-round comfortably, you ought to allow yourself eight or nine hours, and it is as well, nay absolutely necessary, to take a guide with you, in case of fog coming on. In Low's day [Low's Tour, p. 114.], after kirk the young men of the island used to amuse themselves by " putting the stone," for which game there was a stone fixed from which they threw. Low said he could just easily lift the putting-stone. As far as the writer could make out, not only have both stones vanished, but also all tradition about them. The graveyard, or rather churchyard, was wonderfully neatly kept, and in admirable contrast to the general run of Orcadian and Shetlandic boneyards. Any one who spends a few days on this island, and who is lucky in his weather, will be loth to leave; and, long after he has left, will recall the glorious sweep of those precipices which, Professor Heddle says, "as a group, stand unrivalled in the British Isles."

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