Travel
Try the Faroes _
THERE is probably no country in Europe which attracts any-. thing like so small a quota- of visitors. from ,Other European: countries as the Faroe Islands. They lie completely off the beaten track. They are a sort Of Achilles' heel of globe- trotting ; almost invariabfy-._ ifiVeterate --travellers, boasting their intimacy with all the test of oui Ccetinental land-mass, can be -forced to admit that here is one 'territory they have not seen or thought about or—often—even heard -of. And' yet I think that for a variety, of reasons there is no plaee in" Europe better worth visiting.. It,ii.easy of access.--- -there is fi regular_ weekly sailing from Leith to Thorshavn, the_principal town in the Fames, by an excelleptly. appOinted -steamer. When one gets beyond Butt _last lonely outpost of the Shet- lands, the island of goula, even M the sunimer-time, there is an area of cross-currents or," rousts" in Which 'a good tossing is inevitable. But that is no great -drawback except for the very worst of sailors, 'perhaps, and it is soon 'compensated for by the emergence on _north-eastern horizon of a Collection of the weirdest geological shapes, in Europe: .They do not seem to -belong to the earth at all, rbut rather to the ..moun, talus of the, moon. At. first glance,:from afar off, one seems to be approaching a group _of pyramids, but, as one slowly draws up to these islands, their extraordinary character provides a series of unique and fascinating views, not only of sterile pyramidical hills, terraced at regular intervals -.with lateral lines of knobbly basaltic outcropping; and gored from summit to base with the courses of cataracts, but of magnifi- cent bird-bergs, great sea-caves, volcanically contorted stacks of all kinds rising to fantastic ,needle-points. These islands are all internally uninhabitable; they go sheer up and have no inland valleys in which houses can be built: All the housei- and villages and strips Of cultivated ground are round the water's edge, and all locomotion from point to point round the coasts is by boat, it being impossible to construct—or at any rate maintain—roads across country. Scenically amazing though the Farces are, however, neither that nor the cachet of visiting a territory so little visited is the principal attraction. Lonely and well-nigh barren islands, well on the way between Europe and Iceland, may connote to most minds a bare and barbarous life. Not so I The Faroes today are an object-lesson to the whole of Europe. A hundred years ago, or less, the islands were in a desperately bad way. Within living memory they have built up an ex- ceedingly prosperous economy, and, hand in hand with it, a very lively political and cultural renaissance. There is no destitution, no unemployment, the maximum of individual independence, the maximum of communal co-operation. The men marry young, but before they do So each man (at eighteen or nineteen) owns his own commodious Norwegian bungalow. Educational, hospital, and other public services are thoroughly adequate and up to date. The fishing fleet has multiplied itself and is thoroughly modern in all its equipment. It belongs to the islanders themselves, as do all the drying and curing establishments and the transport services. Spain is the principal market. The Fames are almost entirely dependent on this dried fish industry; agriculture, bird- catching and other occupations are relatively negligible. The only dark feature in the picture is the fact that every fifth man in the Farces dies at seaa far greater percentage than
that of any other European nation, even in time of war. -
Despite the hardships of the fishing life, existence in the Faroes is a very happy affair, as is natural where such a cen- tripetal policy pools the activities of all for the common good, and almost the entire profits of industry accrue to the islanders themselves, with a minimum of alien financial over-control. Again, though they live so far North, the Faroese are a fully Continental people, delighting in song and dance and drama, cafe life, and the splendid range of-Danish cookery. Lithe, active, healthy, well-favoured people, most of them are bilingual—able to speak and read Danish, but habitually using Faroese, a distinctive and vigorous variant of old Norse—while many of them also speak English and German. The Farces are prohibitionist ; it is impossible to buy alco- holic drinks in the hotels, pensionnats, or cafes (or. konditori, as they call them) ; but the citizens themselves can import spirits, beer, and wines for their own consumption. The hotels and pensionnats are excellent, and the shopping facilities leave nothing to be desired. I could write a great deal about the rich geological and ornithological interests of these islands—about their strange and chequered history ; about the splendid linguistic and literary movement that has gone hand in hand with the industrial and commercial revival ; but I have perhaps said enough, in the space of one short article, to show that here indeed is the venue for an unique and attractive holiday. It only remains to add .that -.the passage from Leith to Thorshavn is inexpensive, and that the subsequent all-in cost of a holiday in the Farces, making Thorshavn the centre and staying in one of its hotels or pensionnats, need not amount to more than a pound or thirty shillings per head
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