Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott Volume IV Part 14

[60: On being requested, while at breakfast, to inscribe his name in the alb.u.m of the tower, Scott penned immediately the following lines:--

PHAROS LOQUITUR.

"Far in the bosom of the deep, O'er these wild shelves my watch I keep; A ruddy gem of changeful light, Bound on the dusky brow of night, The seaman bids my l.u.s.tre hail, And scorns to strike his timorous sail."]

[61: This is, without doubt, an allusion to some happy day's excursion when his _first love_ was of the party.]

[62: Erskine--Sheriff of Shetland and Orkney.]

[63: Here occurs a rude scratch of drawing.]

[64: Lord Dundas was created Earl of Zetland in 1838, and died in February, 1839.]

[65: Campbell--_Pleasures of Hope_.]

[66: Robert Hamilton, Sheriff of Lanarks.h.i.+re, and afterwards one of the Clerks of Session, was a particular favorite of Scott--first, among many other good reasons, because he had been a soldier in his youth, had fought gallantly and been wounded severely in the American war, and was a very Uncle Toby in military enthusiasm; secondly, because he was a brother antiquary of the genuine Monkbarns breed; thirdly (last, not least), because he was, in spite of the example of the head of his name and race, a steady Tory. Mr. Hamilton sent for Scott when upon his deathbed in 1831, and desired him to choose and carry off as a parting memorial any article he liked in his collection of arms. Sir Walter (by that time sorely shattered in his own health) selected the sword with which his good friend had been begirt at Bunker's Hill.]

[67: During the winter of 1837-38, this worthy clergyman's wife, his daughter, and a servant, perished within sight of the manse, from a flaw in the ice on the loch--which they were crossing as the nearest way home.--(1839.)]

[68: In his reviewal of Pitcairn's _Trials_ (1831), Scott says: "In erecting this Earl's Castle of Scalloway, and other expensive edifices, the King's tenants were forced to work in quarries, transport stone, dig, delve, climb, and build, and submit to all possible sorts of servile and painful labor, without either meat, drink, hire, or recompense of any kind. 'My father,' said Earl Patrick, 'built his house at Sumburgh on the sand, and it has given way already; this of mine on the rock shall abide and endure.' He did not or would not understand that the oppression, rapacity, and cruelty, by means of which the house arose, were what the clergyman really pointed to in his recommendation of a motto. Accordingly, the huge tower remains wild and desolate--its chambers filled with sand, and its rifted walls and dismantled battlements giving unrestrained access to the roaring sea blast."--For more of Earl Patrick, see Scott's _Miscellaneous Prose Works_, vol. xxi. pp. 230, 233; vol.

xxiii. pp. 327, 329.]

[69: Mr. W. S. Rose informs me, that when he was at school at Winchester, the morris-dancers there used to exhibit a sword-dance resembling that described at Camacho's wedding in Don Quixote; and Mr. Morritt adds, that similar dances are even yet performed in the villages about Rokeby every Christmas.]

[70: This is a solitary island, lying about halfway between Orkney and Zetland.]

[71: An American Commodore.]

[72: Mr. Marjoribanks.]

[73: _Thalaba_, Book VIII.]

CHAPTER XXIX

DIARY ON BOARD THE LIGHTHOUSE YACHT CONTINUED. -- THE ORKNEYS.

--KIRKWALL. -- HOY. -- THE STANDING STONES OF STENNIS, ETC.

1814

"_12th August, 1814._--With a good breeze and calm sea we weighed at two in the morning, and worked by short tacks up to Kirkwall Bay, and find ourselves in that fine basin upon rising in the morning.

The town looks well from the sea, but is chiefly indebted to the huge old cathedral that rises out of the centre. Upon landing we find it but a poor and dirty place, especially towards the harbor.

Farther up the town are seen some decent old-fas.h.i.+oned houses, and the Sheriff's interest secures us good lodgings. Marchie goes to hunt for a pointer. The morning, which was rainy, clears up pleasantly, and Hamilton, Erskine, Duff, and I walk to Malcolm Laing's, who has a pleasant house about half a mile from the town.

Our old acquaintance, though an invalid, received us kindly; he looks very poorly, and cannot walk without a.s.sistance, but seems to retain all the quick, earnest, and vivacious intelligence of his character and manner. After this, visit the antiquities of the place, namely, the Bishop's palace, the Earl of Orkney's castle, and the cathedral, all situated within a stone-cast of each other. The two former are ruinous. The most prominent part of the ruins of the Bishop's palace is a large round tower, similar to that of Bothwell in architecture, but not equal to it in size. This was built by Bishop Reid, _tempore Jacobi V._, and there is a rude statue of him in a niche in the front. At the north-east corner of the building is a square tower of greater antiquity, called the Mense or Ma.s.s Tower; but, as well as a second and smaller round tower, it is quite ruinous. A suite of apartments of different sizes fills up the s.p.a.ce between these towers, all now ruinous. The building is said to have been of great antiquity, but was certainly in a great measure reedified in the sixteenth century.

"Fronting this castle or palace of the Bishop, and about a gun-shot distant, is that of the Earl of Orkney. The Earl's palace was built by Patrick Stewart, Earl of Orkney, the same who erected that of Scalloway, in Shetland. It is an elegant structure, partaking at once of the character of a palace and castle. The building forms three sides of an oblong square, but one of the sides extends considerably beyond the others. The great hall must have been remarkably handsome, opening into two or three huge rounds or turrets, the lower part of which is divided by stone shafts into three windows. It has two immense chimneys, the arches or lintels of which are formed by a flat arch, as at Crichton Castle. There is another very handsome apartment communicating with the hall like a modern drawing-room, and which has, like the former, its projecting turrets. The hall is lighted by a fine Gothic-shafted window at one end, and by others on the sides. It is approached by a s.p.a.cious and elegant staircase of three flights of steps. The dimensions may be sixty feet long, twenty broad, and fourteen high, but doubtless an arched roof sprung from the side walls, so that fourteen feet was only the height from the ground to the arches. Any modern architect, wis.h.i.+ng to emulate the real Gothic architecture, and apply it to the purposes of modern splendor, might derive excellent hints from this room. The exterior ornaments are also extremely elegant. The ruins, once the residence of this haughty and oppressive Earl, are now so disgustingly nasty, that it required all the zeal of an antiquary to prosecute the above investigation. Architecture seems to have been Earl Patrick's prevailing taste. Besides this castle and that of Scalloway, he added to or enlarged the old castle of Bressay. To accomplish these objects, he oppressed the people with severities unheard of even in that oppressive age, drew down on himself a shameful though deserved punishment, and left these dishonored ruins to hand down to posterity the tale of his crimes and of his fall. We may adopt, though in another sense, his own presumptuous motto--_Sic Fuit, Est, et Erit_.

"We visit the cathedral, dedicated to St. Magnus, which greeted the Sheriff's approach with a merry peal. Like that of Glasgow, this church has escaped the blind fury of Reformation. It was founded in 1138, by Ronald, Earl of Orkney, nephew of the Saint. It is of great size, being 260 feet long, or thereabout, and supported by twenty-eight Saxon pillars, of good workmans.h.i.+p. The round arch predominates in the building, but I think not exclusively. The steeple (once a very high spire) rises upon four pillars of great strength, which occupy each angle of the nave. Being destroyed by lightning, it was rebuilt upon a low and curtailed plan. The appearance of the building is rather ma.s.sive and gloomy than elegant, and many of the exterior ornaments, carving around the doorways, etc., have been injured by time. We entered the cathedral, the whole of which is kept locked, swept, and in good order, although only the eastern end is used for divine wors.h.i.+p. We walked some time in the nave and western end, which is left unoccupied, and has a very solemn effect as the avenue to the place of wors.h.i.+p.

There were many tombstones on the floor and elsewhere; some, doubtless, of high antiquity. One, I remarked, had the s.h.i.+eld of arms hung by the corner, with a helmet above it of a large proportion, such as I have seen on the most ancient seals. But we had neither time nor skill to decipher what n.o.ble Orcadian lay beneath. The church is as well fitted up as could be expected; much of the old carved oak remains, but with a motley mixture of modern deal pews. All, however, is neat and clean, and does great honor to the kirk-session who maintain its decency. I remarked particularly Earl Patrick's seat, adjoining to that of the magistrates, but surmounting it and every other in the church: it is surrounded with a carved screen of oak, rather elegant, and bears his arms and initials, and the motto I have noticed. He bears the royal arms _without any mark of b.a.s.t.a.r.dy_ (his father was a natural son of James V.) quarterly, with a lymphad or galley, the ancient arms of the county. This circ.u.mstance was charged against him on his trial.[74] I understand the late Mr. Gilbert Laing Meason left the interest of 1000 to keep up this cathedral.

"There are in the street facing the cathedral the ruins of a much more ancient castle; a proper feudal fortress belonging to the Earls of Orkney, but called the King's Castle. It appears to have been very strong, being situated near the harbor, and having, as appears from the fragments, very ma.s.sive walls. While the wicked Earl Patrick was in confinement, one of his natural sons defended this castle to extremity against the King's troops, and only surrendered when it was nearly a heap of ruins, and then under condition he should not be brought in evidence against his father.

"We dine at the inn, and drink the Prince Regent's health, being that of the day--Mr. Baikie of Tankerness dines with us.

"_13th August, 1814._--A bad morning, but clears up. No letters from Edinburgh. The country about Kirkwall is flat, and tolerably cultivated. We see oxen generally wrought in the small country carts, though they have a race of ponies, like those of Shetland, but larger. Marchie goes to shoot on a hill called Whiteford, which slopes away about two or three miles from Kirkwall. The grouse is abundant, for the gentleman who chaperons Marchie killed thirteen brace and a half, with a snipe. There are no partridges nor hares.

The soil of Orkney is better, and its air more genial than Shetland; but it is far less interesting, and possesses none of the wild and peculiar character of the more northern archipelago. All vegetables grow here freely in the gardens, and there are one or two attempts at trees where they are sheltered by walls. How ill they succeed may be conjectured from our bringing with us a quant.i.ty of brushwood, commissioned by Malcolm Laing from Aberbrothock, to be sticks to his pease. This trash we brought two hundred miles. I have little to add, except that the Orkney people have some odd superst.i.tions about a stone on which they take oaths to Odin. Lovers often perform this ceremony in pledge of mutual faith, and are said to account it a sacred engagement.--It is agreed that we go on board after dinner, and sail with the next tide. The magistrates of Kirkwall present us with the freedom of their ancient burgh; and Erskine, instead of being c.u.mbered with drunken sailors, as at Lerwick, or a drunken schoolmaster, as at Fair Isle, is annoyed by his own Subst.i.tute.

This will occasion his remaining two days at Kirkwall, during which time it is proposed we shall visit the lighthouse upon the dangerous rocks called the Skerries, in the Pentland Frith; and then, returning to the eastern side of Pomona, take up the counsellor at Stromness. It is further settled that we leave Marchie with Erskine to get another day's shooting. On board at ten o'clock, after a little bustle in expediting our domestics, washerwomen, etc.

"_14th August, 1814._--Sail about four, and in rounding the mainland of Orkney, called Pomona, encounter a very heavy sea; about ten o'clock, get into the Sound of Holm or Ham, a fine smooth current meandering away between two low green islands, which have little to characterize them. On the right of the Sound is the mainland, and a deep bay called Scalpa Flow indents it up to within two miles of Kirkwall. A ca.n.a.l through this neck of the island would be of great consequence to the burgh. We see the steeple and church of Kirkwall across the island very distinctly. Getting out of the Sound of Holm, we stand in to the harbor or roadstead of Widewall, where we find seven or eight foreign vessels bound for Ireland, and a sloop belonging to the lighthouse service. These roadsteads are common all through the Orkneys, and afford excellent shelter for small vessels.

The day is pleasant and sunny, but the breeze is too high to permit landing at the Skerries. Agree, therefore, to stand over for the mainland of Scotland, and visit Thurso. Enter the Pentland Frith, so celebrated for the strength and fury of its tides, which is boiling even in this pleasant weather; we see a large s.h.i.+p battling with this heavy current, and though with all her canvas set and a breeze, getting more and more involved. See the two Capes of Dungsby or Duncansby, and Dunnet-head, between which lies the celebrated John o' Groat's house, on the north-eastern extremity of Scotland. The sh.o.r.es of Caithness rise bold and rocky before us,--a contrast to the Orkneys, which are all low, excepting the Island of Hoy. On Duncansby-head appear some remarkable rocks, like towers, called the Stacks of Duncansby. Near this sh.o.r.e runs the remarkable breaking tide called the _Merry Men of Mey_, whence Mackenzie takes the scenery of a poem--

'Where the dancing Men of Mey, Speed the current to the land.'[75]

Here, according to his locality, the Caithness-man witnessed the vision, in which was introduced the song, translated by Gray, under the t.i.tle of The Fatal Sisters. On this subject, Mr. Baikie told me the following remarkable circ.u.mstance: A clergyman told him, that while some remnants of the Norse were yet spoken in North Ronaldsha, he carried thither the translation of Mr. Gray, then newly published, and read it to some of the old people as referring to the ancient history of their islands. But so soon as he had proceeded a little way, they exclaimed they knew it very well in the original, and had often sung it to himself when he asked them for an old Norse song; they called it The Enchantresses.--The breeze dies away between two wicked little islands called Swona and Stroma,--the latter belonging to Caithness, the former to Orkney.--_Nota Bene_.

The inhabitants of the rest of the Orcades despise those of Swona for eating limpets, as being the last of human meannesses. Every land has its fas.h.i.+ons. The Fair-Isles-men disdain Orkney-men for eating dog-fish. Both islands have dangerous reefs and whirlpools, where, even in this fine day, the tide rages furiously. Indeed, the large high unbroken billows, which at every swell hide from our deck each distant object, plainly intimate what a dreadful current this must be when vexed by high or adverse winds. Finding ourselves losing ground in the tide, and unwilling to waste time, we give up Thurso--run back into the roadstead or bay of Long-Hope, and anchor under the fort. The bay has four entrances and safe anchorage in most winds, and having become a great rendezvous for s.h.i.+pping (there are nine vessels lying here at present) has been an object of attention with Government.

"Went ash.o.r.e after dinner, and visited the fort, which is only partly completed: it is a _fleche_ to the sea, with eight guns, twenty-four pounders, but without any land defences; the guns are mounted _en barbette_, without embrasures, each upon a kind of movable stage, which stage wheeling upon a pivot in front, and traversing by means of wheels behind, can be pointed in any direction that may be thought necessary. Upon this stage, the gun-carriage moves forward and recoils, and the depth of the parapet shelters the men even better than an embrasure. At a little distance from this battery they are building a Martello tower, which is to cross the fire of the battery, and also that of another projected tower upon the opposite point of the bay. The expedience of these towers seems excessively problematical. Supposing them impregnable, or nearly so, a garrison of fourteen or fifteen men may be always blockaded by a very trifling number, while the enemy dispose of all in the vicinity at their pleasure. In the case of Long-Hope, for instance, a frigate might disembark 100 men, take the fort in the rear, where it is undefended even by a palisade, destroy the magazines, spike and dismount the cannon, carry off or cut out any vessels in the roadstead, and accomplish all the purposes that could bring them to so remote a spot, in spite of a sergeant's party in the Martello tower, and without troubling themselves about them at all. Meanwhile, Long-Hope will one day turn out a flouris.h.i.+ng place; there will soon be taverns and slop-shops, where sailors rendezvous in such numbers; then will come quays, docks, and warehouses; and then a thriving town. Amen, so be it. This is the first fine day we have enjoyed to an end since Sunday, 31st ult. Rainy, cold, and hazy, have been our voyages around these wild islands; I hope the weather begins to mend, though Mr. Wilson, our master, threatens a breeze to-morrow. We are to attempt the Skerries, if possible; if not, we will, I believe, go to Stromness.

"_15th August, 1814._--Fine morning. We get again into the Pentland Frith, and with the aid of a pilot-boat belonging to the lighthouse service, from South Ronaldsha, we attempt the Skerries.

Notwithstanding the fair weather, we have a specimen of the violence of the flood-tide, which forms whirlpools on the shallow sunken rocks by the islands of Swona and Stroma, and in the deep water makes strange, smooth, whirling, and swelling eddies, called by the sailors, _wells_. We run through the _wells of Tuftile_ in particular, which, in the least stress of weather, wheel a large s.h.i.+p round and round, without respect either to helm or sails. Hence the distinction of _wells_ and _waves_ in Old English; the _well_ being that smooth, gla.s.sy, oily-looking eddy, the force of which seems to the eye almost resistless. The bursting of the waves in foam around these strange eddies has a bewildering and confused appearance, which it is impossible to describe. Get off the Skerries about ten o'clock, and land easily; it is the first time a boat has got there for several days. The _Skerries_[76] is an island about sixty acres, of fine short herbage, belonging to Lord Dundas; it is surrounded by a reef of precipitous rocks, not very high, but inaccessible, unless where the ocean has made ravines among them, and where stairs have been cut down to the water for the lighthouse service. Those inlets have a romantic appearance, and have been christened by the sailors, the Parliament House, the Seals'

Lying-in-Hospital, etc. The last inlet, after rus.h.i.+ng through a deep chasm, which is open overhead, is continued under ground, and then again opens to the sky in the middle of the island; in this hole the seals bring out their whelps; when the tide is high, the waves rise up through this aperture in the middle of the isle--like the blowing of a whale in noise and appearance. There is another round cauldron of solid rock, to which the waves have access through a natural arch in the rock, having another and lesser arch rising just above it; in hard weather, the waves rush through both apertures with a horrid noise; the workmen called it the Carron Blast, and, indeed, the variety of noises which issued from the abyss, somewhat reminded me of that engine. Take my rifle, and walk round the cliffs in search of seals, but see none, and only disturb the digestion of certain aldermen-cormorants, who were sitting on the points of the crags after a good fish breakfast; only made one good shot out of four.

The lighthouse is too low, and on the old construction, yet it is of the last importance. The keeper is an old man-of-war's-man, of whom Mr. Stevenson observed that he was a great swearer when he first came; but after a year or two's residence in this solitary abode, became a changed man. There are about fifty head of cattle on the island; they must be got in and off with great danger and difficulty. There is no water upon the isle, except what remains after rain in some pools; these sometimes dry in summer, and the cattle are reduced to great straits. Leave the isle about one; and the wind and tide being favorable, crowd all sail, and get on at the rate of fourteen miles an hour. Soon reach our old anchorage at the Long-Hope, and pa.s.sing, stand to the north-westward, up the Sound of Hoy, for Stromness.

"I should have mentioned, that in going down the Pentland Frith this morning, we saw Johnnie Groat's house, or rather the place where it stood, now occupied by a storehouse. Our pilot opines there was no such man as Johnnie Groat, for, he says, he cannot hear that anybody _ever saw him_. This reasoning would put down most facts of antiquity. They gather sh.e.l.ls on the sh.o.r.e, called _Johnnie Groat's buckies_, but I cannot procure any at present. I may also add, that the interpretation given to _wells_ may apply to the Wells of Slain, in the fine ballad of Clerk Colvill; such eddies in the romantic vicinity of Slains Castle would be a fine place for a mermaid.[77]

"Our wind fails us, and, what is worse, becomes westerly. The Sound has now the appearance of a fine land-locked bay, the pa.s.sages between the several islands being scarce visible. We have a superb view of Kirkwall Cathedral, with a strong gleam of suns.h.i.+ne upon it.

Gloomy weather begins to collect around us, particularly on the island of Hoy, which, covered with gloom and vapor, now a.s.sumes a majestic mountainous character. On Pomona we pa.s.s the Hill of Orphir, which reminds me of the clergyman of that parish, who was called to account for some of his inaccuracies to the General a.s.sembly; one charge he held particularly cheap, namely, that of drunkenness. 'Reverend Moderator,' said he, in reply, 'I _do_ drink, as other gentlemen do.' This Orphir of the north must not be confounded with the Orphir of the south. From the latter came gold, silver, and precious stones; the former seems to produce little except peats. Yet these are precious commodities, which some of the Orkney Isles altogether want, and lay waste and burn the turf of their land instead of importing coal from Newcastle. The Orcadians seem by no means an alert or active race; they neglect the excellent fisheries which lie under their very noses, and in their mode of managing their boats, as well as in the general tone of urbanity and intelligence, are excelled by the less favored Zetlanders. I observe they always crowd their boat with people in the bows, being the ready way to send her down in any awkward circ.u.mstance. There are remains of their Norwegian descent and language in North Ronaldsha, an isle I regret we did not see. A missionary preacher came ash.o.r.e there a year or two since, but being a very little black-bearded unshaved man, the seniors of the isle suspected him of being an ancient Pecht or Pict, and _no canny_, of course. The schoolmaster came down to entreat our worthy Mr. Stevenson, then about to leave the island, to come up and verify whether the preacher was an ancient Pecht, yea or no. Finding apologies were in vain, he rode up to the house where the unfortunate preacher, after three nights'

watching, had got to bed, little conceiving under what odious suspicion he had fallen. As Mr. S. declined disturbing him, his boots were produced, which being a _little_--_little_--_very little_ pair, confirmed, in the opinion of all the bystanders, the suspicion of Pechtism. Mr. S. therefore found it necessary to go into the poor man's sleeping apartment, where he recognized one Campbell, heretofore an ironmonger in Edinburgh, but who had put his hand for some years to the missionary plough; of course he warranted his quondam acquaintance to be no ancient Pecht. Mr. Stevenson carried the same schoolmaster who figured in the adventure of the Pecht, to the mainland of Scotland, to be examined for his office. He was extremely desirous to see a tree; and, on seeing one, desired to know what _girss_ it was that grew at the top on't--the leaves appearing to him to be gra.s.s. They still speak a little Norse, and indeed I hear every day words of that language; for instance, _Ja, kul_, for '_Yes, sir_.' We creep slowly up Hoy Sound, working under the Pomona sh.o.r.e; but there is no hope of reaching Stromness till we have the a.s.sistance of the evening tide. The channel now seems like a Highland loch; not the least ripple on the waves. The pa.s.sage is narrowed, and (to the eye) blocked up by the interposition of the green and apparently fertile isle of Graemsay, the property of Lord Armadale.[78] Hoy looks yet grander, from comparing its black and steep mountains with this verdant isle. To add to the beauty of the Sound, it is rendered lively by the successive appearance of seven or eight whaling vessels from Davies' Straits; large strong s.h.i.+ps, which pa.s.s successively, with all their sails set, enjoying the little wind that is. Many of these vessels display the _garland_; that is, a wreath of ribbons which the young fellows on board have got from their sweethearts, or come by otherwise, and which hangs between the foremast and mainmast, surmounted sometimes by a small model of the vessel. This garland is hung up upon the 1st of May, and remains till they come into port. I believe we shall dodge here till the tide makes about nine, and then get into Stromness: no boatman or sailor in Orkney thinks of the wind in comparison of the tides and currents. We must not complain, though the night gets rainy, and the Hill of Hoy is now completely invested with vapor and mist. In the forepart of the day we executed very cleverly a task of considerable difficulty and even danger.

"_16th August, 1814._--Get into Stromness Bay, and anchor before the party are up. A most decided rain all night. The bay is formed by a deep indention in the mainland, or Pomona; on one side of which stands Stromness--a fis.h.i.+ng village and harbor of _call_ for the Davies' Straits whalers, as Lerwick is for the Greenlanders. Betwixt the vessels we met yesterday, seven or eight which pa.s.sed us this morning, and several others still lying in the bay, we have seen between twenty and thirty of these large s.h.i.+ps in this remote place.

The opposite side of Stromness Bay is protected by Hoy, and Graemsay lies between them; so that the bay seems quite land-locked, and the contrast between the mountains of Hoy, the soft verdure of Graemsay, and the swelling hill of Orphir on the mainland, has a beautiful effect. The day clears up, and Mr. Rae, Lord Armadale's factor, comes off from his house, called Clestrom, upon the sh.o.r.e opposite to Stromness, to breakfast with us. We go ash.o.r.e with him. His farm is well cultivated, and he has procured an excellent breed of horses from Lanarks.h.i.+re, of which county he is a native; strong hardy Galloways, fit for labor or hacks. By this we profited, as Mr. Rae mounted us all, and we set off to visit the Standing Stones of Stenhouse or Stennis.

"At the upper end of the bay, about halfway between Clestrom and Stromness, there extends a loch of considerable size, of fresh water, but communicating with the sea by apertures left in a long bridge or causeway which divides them. After riding about two miles along this lake, we open another called the Loch of Harray, of about the same dimensions, and communicating with the lower lake, as the former does with the sea, by a stream, over which is constructed a causeway, with openings to suffer the flow and reflux of the water, as both lakes are affected by the tide. Upon the tongues of land which, approaching each other, divide the lakes of Stennis and Harray, are situated the Standing Stones. The isthmus on the eastern side exhibits a semicircle of immensely large upright pillars of unhewn stone, surrounded by a mound of earth. As the mound is discontinued, it does not seem that the circle was ever completed.

The flat or open part of the semicircle looks up a plain, where, at a distance, is seen a large tumulus. The highest of these stones may be about sixteen or seventeen feet, and I think there are none so low as twelve feet. At irregular distances are pointed out other unhewn pillars of the same kind. One, a little to the westward, is perforated with a round hole, perhaps to bind a victim; or rather, I conjecture, for the purpose of solemnly attesting the deity, which the Scandinavians did by pa.s.sing their head through a ring,--_vide_ Eyrbiggia Saga. Several barrows are scattered around this strange monument. Upon the opposite isthmus is a complete circle, of ninety-five paces in diameter, surrounded by standing stones, less in size than the others, being only from ten or twelve to fourteen feet in height, and four in breadth. A deep trench is drawn around this circle on the outside of the pillars, and four tumuli, or mounds of earth, are regularly placed, two on each side.

"Stonehenge excels these monuments, but I fancy they are otherwise unparalleled in Britain. The idea that such circles were exclusively Druidical is now justly exploded. The northern nations all used such erections to mark their places of meeting, whether for religious purposes or civil policy; and there is repeated mention of them in the Sagas. See the Eyrbiggia Saga,[79] for the establishment of the Helga-fels, or holy mount, where the people held their Comitia, and where sacrifices were offered to Thor and Woden. About the centre of the semicircle is a broad flat stone, probably once the altar on which human victims were sacrificed.--Mr. Rae seems to think the common people have no tradition of the purpose of these stones, but probably he has not inquired particularly. He admits they look upon them with superst.i.tious reverence; and it is evident that those which have fallen down (about half the original number) have been wasted by time, and not demolished. The materials of these monuments lay near, for the sh.o.r.es and bottom of the lake are of the same kind of rock. How they were raised, transported, and placed upright, is a puzzling question. In our ride back, noticed a round entrenchment, or _tumulus_, called the Hollow of Tongue.

"The hospitality of Mrs. Rae detained us to an early dinner at Clestrom. About four o'clock took our long-boat and rowed down the bay to visit the Dwarfie Stone of Hoy. We have all day been pleased with the romantic appearance of that island, for though the Hill of Hoy is not very high, perhaps about 1200 feet, yet rising perpendicularly (almost) from the sea, and being very steep and furrowed with ravines, and catching all the mists from the western ocean, it has a n.o.ble and picturesque effect in every point of view.

We land upon the island, and proceed up a long and very swampy valley broken into peat-bogs. The one side of this valley is formed by the Mountain of Hoy, the other by another steep hill, having at the top a circular belt of rock; upon the slope of this last hill, and just where the princ.i.p.al mountain opens into a wide and precipitous and circular _corrie_ or hollow, lies the Dwarfie Stone.

It is a huge sandstone rock, of one solid stone, being about seven feet high, twenty-two feet long, and seventeen feet broad. The upper end of this stone is hewn into a sort of apartment containing two beds of stone and a pa.s.sage between them. The uppermost and largest is five feet eight inches long, by two feet broad, and is furnished with a stone pillow. The lower, supposed for the Dwarf's Wife, is shorter, and rounded off, instead of being square at the corners.

The entrance may be about three feet and a half square. Before it lies a huge stone, apparently intended to serve the purpose of a door, and shaped accordingly. In the top, over the pa.s.sage which divides the beds, there is a hole to serve for a window or chimney, which was doubtless originally wrought square with irons, like the rest of the work, but has been broken out by violence into a shapeless hole. Opposite to this stone, and proceeding from it in a line down the valley, are several small barrows, and there is a very large one on the same line, at the spot where we landed. This seems to indicate that the monument is of heathen times, and probably was meant as the temple of some northern edition of the _Dii Manes_.

There are no symbols of Christian devotion--and the door is to the westward; it therefore does not seem to have been the abode of a hermit, as Dr. Barry[80] has conjectured. The Orcadians have no tradition on the subject, excepting that they believe it to be the work of a dwarf, to whom, like their ancestors, they attribute supernatural powers and malevolent disposition. They conceive he may be seen sometimes sitting at the door of his abode, but he vanishes on a nearer approach. Whoever inhabited this den certainly enjoyed

'Pillow cold and sheets not warm.'

"Duff, Stevenson, and I now walk along the skirts of the Hill of Hoy, to rejoin Robert Hamilton, who in the mean while had rode down to the clergyman's house, the wet and boggy walk not suiting his gout. Arrive at the manse completely wet, and drink tea there. The clergyman (Mr. Hamilton) has procured some curious specimens of natural history for Bullock's Museum, particularly a pair of fine eaglets. He has just got another of the golden, or white kind, which he intends to send him. The eagle, with every other ravenous bird, abounds among the almost inaccessible precipices of Hoy, which afford them shelter, while the moors, abounding with grouse, and the small uninhabited islands and holms, where sheep and lambs are necessarily left unwatched, as well as the all-sustaining ocean, give these birds of prey the means of support. The clergyman told us that a man was very lately alive in the island of ....., who, when an infant, was transported from thence by an eagle over a broad sound, or arm of the sea, to the bird's nest in Hoy. Pursuit being instantly made, and the eagle's nest being known, the infant was found there playing with the young eaglets. A more ludicrous instance of transportation he himself witnessed. Walking in the fields, he heard the squeaking of a pig for some time, without being able to discern whence it proceeded, until looking up, he beheld the unfortunate grunter in the talons of an eagle, who soared away with him towards the summit of Hoy. From this it may be conjectured, that the island is very thinly inhabited; in fact, we only saw two or three little wigwams. After tea we walked a mile farther, to a point where the boat was lying, in order to secure the advantage of the flood-tide. We rowed with toil across one stream of tide, which set strongly up between Graemsay and Hoy; but, on turning the point of Graemsay, the other branch of the same flood-tide carried us with great velocity alongside our yacht, which we reached about nine o'clock. Between riding, walking, and running, we have spent a very active and entertaining day.