• THE ORKNEYS.*

THERE are few things pleasanter than in an idle mood to come across some book of unexciting travel, and, giving ourselves up into the writer's hands, to let him lead us on our easy journey, seeing with his eyes and hearing with his ears. But in order that we may do so with that passive acquiescence and dreamy sense of enjoyment necessary for the occasion, if we are to enjoy ourselves

at all, our guide must be thinking of his own pleasure and not of ours; of the beauty of things around him, not of the beauty of his own descriptions ; of the "eloquent teachings" of nature, if he will, but not of his eloquence in expounding those teachings for our benefit. A genuine love of nature and something of that meditative eye that looks "into the life of things," combined with an entire avoidance of fine writing, are all that is needed to lead us willing captives, whether it be to the Land's End, to the "furthest Hebrides," or as now, under Mr. Gorrie's guidance, to the yet further Orkneys.

"It was," he says, "after reading Hugh Miller's attractive account of his geological explorations in the vicinity of Stromness, and his summer evening rambles round the loch of Stennis, that I first felt a strong desire to visit the Orkney Islands,"—a desire which his little book will be very apt to reproduce in others. That wish may easily be gratified. If the length of the journey does not deter the traveller, he will no longer find risk or inconvenience on the road. All through the summer and autumn steamers ply twice a week between Granton and Kirkwall, calling on the way at Aberdeen and Wick, and taking about thirty hours to perform the distance. A century ago, Mr. Gorrie tells us, the Orcadians were in the habit of making their wills before leaving for the South, and of celebrating a solemn foy "or parting feast with their friends," a sort of wake, we suppose, held over their own living bodies. According to the accounts handed down to us of the cruelty and rapacity of the lords of these islands, the will, if not the feast, would have been even more suitably made by the Southerner before travelling to the Orkneys.

Taking up his abode in the "mainland" (as the largest island, Pomona, is called), Mr. Gorrie made cruises to the various islands, a large and scattered group of all sizes and degrees of fertility ; some lying low on the sea, healthy, marshy, or covered with coarse grasses, others girt by fine cliffs and containing much fertile land. "From one hill on the ' mainland ' the whole Orcadian archipe-

lago, with its islands, holms, stacks, and skerries, lies at our feet like the scattered fragments of some ingenious and parti-coloured toy map. It would be difficult to match the spectacle in fine/1M and unexpectedness of scenical effect."

"Climb with me these healthy and breezy slopes on a pleasant autumn day, and away to the westward you. see the waters of the Atlantic glitter- ing in the afternoon sunshine, while ever and anon light fleecy clouds, sailing over the heavens, chequer the surface of the sea. Opposite, on the southern side, across the sound, with its swift-rushing tides, rise the dark and precipitous hills of Hoy, which hold, as with some weird attrac- tion, the spectator's eye. Seamed and seared by the storms of centuries, they have an aspect of wild loneliness and desolate grandeur. The sea smiles in the sunlight, but they never lose their look of dark sublimity. Id the great hollow between the heights the shadows condense into a gloom that might be felt. The effects of light and shade on this autumnal afternoon are profoundly touching in their almost unearthly beauty. Here and there, in the lower grounds, patches of green come out vividly in sudden gleams of light, forming a striking contrast to the overhanging gloom of the weird and withered hills. The low concealed isle of Graem- say, with cattle grazing amidst its pleasant pastures, lying along the waters beneath the lowering brows of the giant heights, enhances still more the wonderful effects of contrasted beauty and gloom. Wreaths of misty vapour, wafted from the wide Atlantic, seem ever ascending and descending the precipitous sides. No sooner has one mist-cloud drawn up its thin skirts to the topmost pinnacle and melted into thin air than another descends, and again the white wreaths rise seething and curling out of the gloom below. At the turn of the tide observe how the swift • Summers and Winters in the Orkneys. By Daniel Gems. London: Hodder and. Stoughton. waters from the Atlantic rush through the mouth of the sound between the Black Craig and Hoy Head. Eddying and twirling like a great river in flood, they sweep onward with resistless strength. Borne on the run of these currents, when wind and tiderset from the same quarter, fisher-boats dash through the sound as if racing for a regatta cup. Stromness (Strome-neis.) literally signifies the ness in the current, and thus we find that the Norse name for the promontory, in which the hills terminate, has been transferred to the town."

Between some of the islands this inward and outward rush of the Atlantic takes the grand—but to unskilled navigators danger- ous—form of "Roosts,"—genuine maelstroms, such as that whose mysterious depths Edgar Poe unveils for us in one of the finest of his weird fantastic take, the Roosts of Samburgh and Enhal- low, the Boars of Duncansbay, and the merry men of Mey. 'Listen," ten," says Mr. Gorrie, "and you will hear a roar from the south-west as if the Atlantic were about to burst down upon us with the thunder and tramp of irresistible waves." Some suppose that the ebbing tide pours over a submarine precipice, others that the ebb tides of the channel meeting with the open swell of the ocean are sufficient to account for all the phenomena. At high water they are less marked, if not quite obliterated.

The Orkneys contain many curious relics of times beyond the Norse invasion. Green conical mounds are found in waste moor-

land places which, when entered by a narrow passage, are found to contain four chambers, the largest not above ten feet by five. These " Picts' " houses, as they are called, and possibly are, were -first opened up in 1849, when bones of horses, cows, and deer were found within them.

"In some of the Orkney barrows portions of deers' horn and the long curved tusks of the boar have been found intermingled with pieces of clay vessels, and bone combs, and fragments of other household articles. This circumstance gives probability to the conjecture that the builders of the subterranean dwellings were coeval with the great forests which once covered the hills and valleys."

Rambling from island to island, Mr. Gorrie touches lightly and pleasantly on the peculiarities of each ; now giving his readers a bit of historical reminiscence, or a snatch from the old Sagas ; now a passing glimpse of the dwellers in these remote lands and their condition. We could wish he had been more liberal in this last respect ; what he does tell us impresses us favourably. In point of intelligence, industry, and capability of holding their own, the Orcadians seem far in advance of their neighbours in the Hebrides. Many of their cottages, it is true, are still no better than hats, shared with their live stock, the calves playing with the children before the hearth. But, says Mr. Gorrie, "the miserable appearance of many cottages does not, however, invariably indi- cate poverty, as in the Hebrides and in Ireland. The Orkney peasantry are a frugal, thrifty people, who act upon the advice contained in the old Scottish proverb, Keep something for a sair fit.' There are crofters and 'pickie lairds' living in earthen- floored hovels, and content with the simplest fare, who have snug deposits in the banking establishments of Kirkwall and Stronmess." Within the last fifty years, since the kelp manu- facture became less profitable, attention has been paid to agriculture, especially to that branch for which the Orkneys (though in a lesser degree than the Shetlands) are best fitted, viz., the breeding and pasturing of sheep and cattle ; and the results are such as must prove gratifying to the benevolent feel- ings, as well as to the pockets, of the enterprising gentlemen who have led the way to and furnished the capital for the experiment.

Sixty years since 50,000 native sheep ran wild over the heathy lands, last year the census of live stock returned the Orkney and

Shetland Islands as eighth on the list of Scottish counties for cattle, while Merino and Leicester Cheviots have replaced the old wild breed. While staying for a few days at Stronsay, Mr.

Gorrie was so fortunate as to fall in with a strange and exciting adventure, if that can be called an adventure in which he per-

formed the safe part of a looker-on. He was sitting with his host, when the servant burst in upon them with the news that 4' the bay is fou o' whales, and half-a-hundred boats after them."

"Whales in the bay, so soon in the season !" exclaimed the 'clergyman, starting to his feet. "Come away," he continued, seizing me by the button, "you have yet another day before you.

We imitate the great of old, who entertained their guests with tour- naments." An exciting scene it was ; the boats, in a half circle outside the shoal, with sound of "beating pitchers, rattling row- locks," and prolonged " Oh, ohs!" were driving the whales towards the shallows when, frightened by some incautious movement in front, the whole shoal wheeled round, and dashing through the ranks of their pursuers, gained the open sea. "Away! beyond the broken line of the fleet they plunged in wild stampede, rearing their gleaming backs along the surface and striking the blue waters

into spangles of foam. Arches of spray blown into the air at wide distances apart served to indicate the size of the shoal and the speed of the fugitives." After them went the boats, round the near headland, on the other side. Recovered from their fright, the whales drifted leisurely along the coast, into one bay of which more than a handed and fifty incautiously entered. Mr. Gorrie shall tell his own story :— "Rounding the point of Torness and stretching across the mouth of the bay, the fleet of small craft again bore in view and pressed upon the rear of the slowly advancing and imprisoned whales. Among the on- lookers there was now intense excitement ; the greatest anxiety prevailed lest the detached wing should follow the previous practice of the main army, and again break the line of boats in a victorious charge. The shoutings and noise of the boatmen recommenced, and echoed from shore to shore of the beautiful and secluded bay. A fresh alarm seized the monsters, but instead of wheeling about and rushing off to the open sea as before, they dashed rapidly forward a few yards, pursued by the boats, and were soon helplessly floundering in the shallows. Fast and furious the boatmen struck and stabbed to right and left, while the people on the shore, forming an auxiliary force, dashed down to assist in the massacre, wielding all sorts of weapons, from roasting spits to ware forks. The poor wounded monsters lashed about with their tails, imperilling life and limb, and the ruddy hue of the water along the stretch of shore soon indicated the extent of the carnage. The whales that had received their death- stroke emitted shrill cries accompanied with a strange snorting and hum- ming noise, which has been not inaptly compared to the distant sound of

military drams pierced by the sharp piping of fifes The carcases, I was informed, would realize between £300 and £400, and grateful were the people that Providence had remembered the island of Stronsay by sending them a wonderful windfall of bottle-noses fresh from the confines of the Arctic circle."

Though Mr. Gorrie did not visit the Shetland Isles, he extended his tour as far as the rock-bordered island of Fara, modernized into Fair. The people here differ both from those of the Orkneys and of the Shetlands, and have shared little in their recent advance in civilization. It is thought that Spanish blood runs in their veins, and that they are the descendants of Spaniards wrecked in the Great Armada on Fair Island's dangerous coast. We have left unnoticed many points of interest in this pleasant little volume. If our readers are induced by what we have said to seek them out in its pages, they will not, we think, find a few hours ill spent in the search.