failure of the white-fishing, the small farmer of Shetland enjoys a reasonable degree of comfort and satisfaction in his existence. Meal, potatoes, and milk his farm affords; and fuel in abundance is included in his holding. Fish, and oil for the lamp, the bountiful ocean at his cottage-door supplies. On the common or hill, he has the right to keep as many ponies, sheep, and geese as he can attend to, without boundary or restriction, merely putting his own proper mark on them, to distinguish his property; pigs and poultry, of course, also, he need never want. His cottage is, for the most part, about thirty feet long, and from ten to fifteen wide; the walls low, and built of stone and clay, but sometimes with lime, and often plastered inside and outside with mortar; the roof covered with turf, and then scantily thatched. It consists of two divisions: the larger and outer one is the common family apartment, with an earthen floor; it has no chimney, but only a hole in the roof above a raised hearth at the one end; the beds, enclosed like a cupboard, and one over the other as on shipboard, serve as a partition from the smaller or ben end; this latter is wooden-roofed and floored, is the sleeping-place of the heads of the family, a parlour in which to receive guests, provided with a glazed window and a chimney, but no grate; the peats, indeed, burn much better and more cheerily on the ample well-swept hearth. Sometimes the space above this latter room is boarded in, and forms a sleeping-place for the young men of the family. Very few households do not consist of double families; a son or daughter, and often both, or two, when married, remain with the parents, share the labour and the rent-paying, and thus form quite a patriarchal household, with a community of comforts which separate establishments could not so easily afford. Sociality is greatly desired by the Shetlanders, and no pride in having a house of her own can compensate to a youthful wife for the gossip of her sisters, or the indulgence of her parents' society.

There is one consequence of the association of these family groups which is sometimes lamentable. The father, sons, and sons-in-law frequently purchase a boat for themselves (it is, indeed, their grand object of ambition to do so), or they insist on being placed together for the fishing by their landlord. Should that boat be lost at sea, what desolation falls on one unfortunate family! It has happened very lately that one female has in this way lost husband, sons, and brother at a stroke.

For such a cottage as I have described, with its appurtenances, and as much land fit for tillage as may measure six to eight acres, the rent is from £4 to £7. The tenants hold their farms from year to year, and they invariably prefer this to leases, though often the same family keeps the same farm from generation to generation. The mode of agriculture would be called slovenly elsewhere, but the soil being poor and shallow, it is perhaps best adapted to the circumstances. Ploughs are little used by the peasantry: the spade

alone is employed, and it is a primitive and unique implement. The blade is only 5 inches long, and the same broad: the handle is 45 inches long. Three or four persons stand in a row together, press their spades into the ground with the right foot on the small crossbar, and then simultaneously turn over the turf thus loosened, and step onwards to the right, till the breadth of the furrow is reached. Children, or the weakest hands, are placed in the middle positions, where the strength required is least; and thus it is amazing how much ground will be turned over in a spring day. The very light harrow is more frequently drawn by a man or woman than by the ponies, which, after the hard winter, are in the labouring season so weak as to be unfit for work. No seed is ever sown in autumn; but it is a pity that, during the winter, the peasant fisherman thinks too little of his land employ: he will hang on in desultory idleness, looking out for a favourable moment to go a-fishing, when he could turn his industry to far better account by keeping his turf fences in proper repair, and especially by collecting manure and making composts, the materials for which are in general suffered to go to entire loss. Sea-weed, for instance, so valuable for the ground, is often allowed to be swept away by the next tide, when, collected, it would fertilise many a field. Kelp is hardly ever made in Shetland now, but the sea-weed called tangle is eaten freely by ponies, cattle, and sheep during each ebb of the tide in winter.

Fish of course form at least two of the meals in a Shetland cottage daily. The young of the coal-fish (Gadus carbonarius) swarm in every bay and creek of these, in some respects, therefore favoured islands. In their first year's growth, they are about six inches long, and called sillacks. About the month of March ensuing, they have grown to the length of about fifteen inches, when they receive the name of piltacks. After this period they thrive very fast, attaining the ordinary size of the cod-fish, when they are called saithes. So abundant and constant is the supply of the young of this fish, that whenever weather will allow a small boat to swim, they are caught with a rod and shell-fish bait, or with an artificial fly, every evening, even in the winter months. Women and boys also fish them from the rocks in the same manner; and they often set into the creeks in shoals, when a small net stretched on a hoop, being dipped into the sea, is lifted out full. Their livers yield a large supply of oil, and the fish are prepared for food in every variety of way; but, as I mentioned before, are preferred when they have been hung up to sour for a few days. The liquor in which fish have been boiled is given to calves and pigs; but very rarely is the fish given to animals, though it is done, I believe, in Norway, and on the coasts of the Red Sea.

On the whole, the mode of living of the Shetland peasantry gives one a favourable impression of their character and situation. They are far superior to the generality of Irish or Highland homes,

and, besides, they are for the most part kept very orderly. The pigsty is always outside; the little barn is constructed on one end, entering from the house, or occasionally it is placed across the entrance-door, and thus serves as a porch-shelter to the dwelling; and the cow-house is beyond that again. Inside, with the family, a fostered lamb in winter, or a young calf, may be seen in a corner, sharing the children's meals, and thriving like them; the fowls, too, are generally picking up the crumbs, so that from warmth and good feeding, they often lay eggs all winter. Occasionally the dwellings are smoky, and personally the people are not very cleanly in their habits; but they have plenty of fresh air, and abundant springs of the purest water; and swarms of healthy children, and many very aged persons, attest the favourable circumstances of their lot. Very few young children die : epidemics and convulsions are the rarest things possible. Rheumatism, from the moistness of the climate, is common among all classes; and pulmonary diseases are also unfortunately too general.*

In Shetland the adult female population greatly preponderates. When the young men grow up, they go off as sailors, few of them ever to return; and accidents at sea sweep off the prime of manhood thus the population is in some measure checked, though it has, as elsewhere, greatly increased during the last seventy years. As to clothing, one sees nothing like the squalid rags common in many other parts. Coarse household-made woollens, and bare head and feet, are indeed the home costume of some of the old and of the very young; but most of the females take pride in being neatly clad ; and this they are able to effect by the returns for their knitting. On Sunday at the churches, therefore, may be seen men and women most respectably, the young girls even tastefully dressed. respects personal appearance, the stranger will not fail to notice the fair hair, blue eyes, and spare figure which betoken a Scandinavian ancestry.

As

As in Scotland, there are always schools in each parish-one supported by the heritors, and others by the General Assembly, or the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge. These are so generally taken advantage of, even at great distances, that there are

* Superstitions of various kinds are still common among the less educated inhabitants of Shetland, and one in relation to the cure of scrofula is thus alluded to by the Rev. J. Robertson, in his description of Mid and South Yell, in the New Statistical Account of Scotland: For the cure of this fatal disorder, nothing, even at the present day, is deemed so effectual as the royal touch! And as a substitute for the actual living finger of royalty, a few crowns and half-crowns of the coinage of the first Charles, carefully handed down from father to son, have been effectual, both here and in every other parish in Shetland, towards removing this disease, and that to an extent which may appear somewhat incredible to many whose minds, in reference to the healing virtue still inherent in royalty, may be in a more sophisticated state than those of her Majesty's subjects in this latitude. Be this as it may, there are few localities in Shetland in which a living evidence is not to be found of one said to have been "cured by the coin," and who would instantly be pointed at as a sufficient evidence to warrant confidence in its efficacy, should it happen that a doubt at any time rested thereon.'

none of the present generation, it is believed, who cannot read well, and many can write. The Shetlanders are not, however, fond of reading and improving their minds like so many of the Scottish peasantry. Perhaps want of books may repress the development of any literary taste; and if so, it is to be regretted; for if they liked books more, and had the means, through popular libraries, of gratifying this inclination, they would undoubtedly be more intelligent and prosperous.

Besides retaining the old style in the computation of time, the Shetlanders retain another ancient usage, nowhere else, I suppose, to be found in Britain-namely, that of each generation adopting a new surname, drawn from the Christian name of the father. Thus, the son of James Robertson would not be called Robertson; he would receive the name of Jameson; and so on with all other names. This causes a great confusion of names to a stranger, besides being otherwise inconvenient, and the practice ought by all means to be abandoned. The women, after marriage, always retain their maiden names; but this is also a custom among the Lowland Scotch.

From these sketches it may be gathered that, inclement as is the situation and climate of Shetland, its people are far from being objects of commiseration; nor are they, in point of conduct and habits, to be classed with the unruly population of many lands more favoured by nature. Great crimes are rare amongst them, and nowhere is there any fear of petty depredations. The inhabitant of a great city, who at night bolts his doors and windows, to guard against the midnight thief, and is ever in dread of spoliation, might envy the freedom from care of the Shetland householder, who fears no thieves, and scarcely knows the use of chains or locks. Formerly, the meanest point in the character of the Shetlanders was their acquisitiveness in the case of wrecks on their coast; but this vice, through the rigours of recent acts of parliament, is greatly modified, if not extirpated. Although intemperance in the use of intoxicating liquors could be cited as an unfortunate feature in some departments of the population, Shetland is still more remarkable for the ineconomic use of a beverage which is ordinarily considered the antagonist of intemperance -I allude to tea. No kind of beverage is so much relished by the female peasantry of Shetland as tea.* To get tea they will venture as great and as unprincipled lengths as any dram-drinker

*About £25,000 worth of bohea is annually entered at the custom-house in Lerwick, besides which, a great quantity is smuggled by Dutch fishing-boats. One poor man, in the parish of Bressay, who had the expensive infliction of a tea-drinking wife, was cheated by her secretly selling his goods to obtain tea. He was observed once to purchase the same peck of meal three times over in one week, being always assured that his children had eaten it. A Highland laird once remarked, that the Scotch peasantry were ruined by forsaking the good old porridge of their ancestors.'-Shetland and the Shetlanders, by Catherine Sinclair.

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will go for his favourite liquor. The wool that ought to clothe the family, the oil and butter that should pay the rent, nay, the meal and potatoes that, carefully husbanded, are to feed the children, are all unscrupulously sold or bartered for tea. The females are the chief tea-drinkers, and often without the knowledge of their husbands, whose humble means are pilfered in order to gratify this ruling propensity. Tea is a universal means of payment for any little services in Shetland. An errand will be run for a small quantity of tea; some spinning will be done for tea; and tea will form a most acceptable present on leaving a dwelling where you have received any attentions. The quantity of tobacco and spirits consumed is also considerable; and it is from an excessive indulgence in these foreign luxuries, that the Shetland peasant is kept lower in the scale of poverty than he has any just reason to be. Latterly, the introduction of a poor-law has led to dismal consequences. The pressure of the rates acts severely on property, and it would almost appear as if the abject poor were in a fair way of absorbing the rental of the islands."

With all the interesting associations of this group of islands, things are not what we could wish. Remote, and with a generally inclement climate, Shetland is unhappily situated. Great efforts have lately been made to introduce improvements of various kinds. The latest and not the least important measure of the kind has been the connecting Lerwick with Orkney and the mainland by a telegraphic wire, by which, in a way, the principal islands are brought within an intimate relationship with the great centres of intelligence. There is likewise a growing interest in the public mind regarding Shetland. Trips to it by steamer from Granton (a port in the Firth of Forth, near Edinburgh) are more common than formerly. The islands are also visited nearly every year by the Pharos, a large and commodious steamer belonging to the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses, for the purpose of inspecting the lighthouses on the coast; one of these being situated on a rocky islet at the extremity of Unst, the most northern habitable spot in the British Islands. By this vessel, the Commissioners, in 1867, visited the solitary island of Foula, which lies between Shetland and Orkney, and is out of the way of ordinary navigators. Here, the inhabitants live in so remarkably primitive and simple a manner, that crime and the more odious vices of civilised society are unknown. On the next page is subjoined a small wood-cut of Foula, which, at its western extremity, presents a lofty precipice of red sandstone to the everlasting buffetings of the Atlantic.

RETURN TO SCOTLAND.

For several days no cutter appeared, and I began to fancy that the rumour of her visit to the Sound of Yell must have been a