and communication with the mainland are impossible, driven to eat limpets, on which account local chronicles declare they are despised by the Orcadians.

On rejoining my friends, who had gathered a rich harvest of "buckies," we returned to the little inn, and dined sumptuously. Then, during the long evening hours, we drove along the coast to Thurso, passing Barrogill Castle, the seat of the Earl of Caithness, looking out on the Pentland Firth, and saw the setting sun fire the Hoy precipices and make the Pentland Firth a sea of golden glory.

CHAP. XIV.

Excursion to the Orkneys." Weather permitting."-The Boatman's Trust in Providence.-The Royal Mail Steamer.-A stout Craft.Mountain-like Waves.-Outside Hoy.-A mingling of Miseries.The Hoy Precipices.-Grand Scenery.-The "Old Man of Hoy."Tremendous Sea.-Isle of Gramsay.-Stromness Bay.-Stromness.— Rapid Growth of Seaweed.-Flett's Inn.-Narrow Streets.-Excellent Quarters.-Fishing for Sillocks.-The 'Population.-A Quack Doctor.-How to obtain Kisses.-Vivat Humbug.-Sale of Winds.

EVERY lawful day, weather permitting, during the summer months a steamer leaves Scrabster at two o'clock for Stromness in Pomona. Pomona is the largest of the Orkneys - so large indeed in comparison to the rest of the Orcadian group that the inhabitants dignify it with the name of the mainland.*

Nowhere around our stormbeaten coast have the words "weather permitting" greater significance than in the Pentland Firth, particularly with reference to the passage to the Orkneys, though the distance to Pomona

The Scandinavian name of this island was Hrossey, signifying "island of horses."

is only twenty-eight miles. For not only may you not be able to get to the Orkneys, but when there you must be prepared to run the risk of being detained in the islands by storms. True, when the weather prevents the steamer running a ferry-boat carries the mails between South Ronaldsa and Scotland; but you must not place entire reliance on this boat to convey you out of the Orcadian archipelago, for there are many days in the autumn when even the stoutest boat could not live in the Firth. I heard, indeed, that to avoid needless risk Government prudently offers only such a sum for the carriage of the mails as will remunerate the boatmen to attempt the pas age under favourable circumstances. The Scrabster boats seem quite unfitted to combat the wild Atlantic waves; but they frequently make the passage, and their boatmen appear to be influenced by the same religious spirit felt by those with whom Sir Walter Scott sailed when he visited the north of Scotland. Proceeding one day in a bark of rather crazy build, he observed to his boatmen that they must have great confidence to go to sea in such a craft. "Sir," was the reply, "without confidence we would not go to sea in the best boat in the world."

The build of the Royal Mail steamer which links the Orkneys with civilisation is such as to impress you very forcibly that your voyage will not be over smooth summer seas. She is nearly as broad as she

ACROSS TO THE ORKNEYS.

141

is long, and so bluff at the bows and strongly built that you see at a glance she is made to receive hard knocks.

Although the day was on the whole favourable, it was not without misgivings that I stepped on board the tublike craft; and these were rather strengthened than otherwise by the skipper, who, cased in an oilskin suit, declared, in answer to our questions respecting the passage, that it would be very rough, and that there were heavy rollers in the Firth.

In Thurso Bay all went smoothly, but no sooner were we outside Holbourn Head than the little steamer puffed into a jumbling sea, and commenced a series of evolutions that quickly stilled the tongues, though not the stomachs, of my fellow passengers, who were soon in such agony as to be unable to remain on deck. Floundering below as best they could, their cries for a steward were answered by a rough sailor, who brought them a kind of trough for common use, over which they mingled their moans and miseries.

Fortunately, although the wind was westerly, and mountain-like waves, born in the Atlantic, were around us, it did not blow sufficiently strong to prevent us passing outside Hoy, the south-west island of the Orkneys. Indeed, we steamed so close to this that the precipices, which attain at one place the stupendous height of 1,300 feet, appeared like a wall within a few

yards of us, while the steamboat, dwarfed by comparison, seemed like a small boat on the rolling sea.

But I had faith in the steamer and her weather-worn skipper, and my enjoyment was complete.

How could it be otherwise?-above, grand masses of cloud, sweeping across the deep blue, casting their shadows like dark isles on sea and cliff; below, huge waves, rolling onward in ever-increasing majesty, until in the fulness of their pride and might they broke in thunder tones against the cliffs, belting the rocks with creamy foam contrasting exquisitely with the deep blue of the sea, while the tawny sandstone precipices glowed under the rays of the sun, now sinking in the rich heart of the west.

That man must indeed be ill at ease, physically or mentally, who would not be joyous amidst this glorious combination of sea, sky, and cliff. In its presence, hearing the great sea voice, it was not difficult to understand how the young Orcadian who from her cradle had lived in the contemplation of the eternally heaving ocean, thought when she went to Scotland that nothing was so dead and lifeless as the dark green woods. Scott tells the story, rendered more impressive by Wordsworth, who was paying him a visit at Abbotsford, breaking forth on a breezy day, as the trees were swayed to and fro, and the branches tossed about, "What life there is in trees!" Indeed, so disappointed was the