ZETLAND lies to the north-east from Orkney, between the sixtieth and sixty-first degree of latitude, there being about twenty or twenty-one leagues betwixt the Start-Head of Sanda, the northernmost point thereof, and Swinburg Head, the southernmost point of land in Zetland, over a very rolling and swelling sea, wherein there constantly runs the strong current of a tide, which causing the sea to rise with its swelling waves, the whole passage betwixt Orkney and Zetland is but as one continued roust, or strong and impetuous tide, especially about the Fair-Isle, still such a great sea goeth, even in the greatest cairn, that the boats are like to sling the masts out of them ; and our boat-master told us, that frequently, when he had been passing the Fair-Isle in a dead cairn, the boat hath been so tossed by the swelling sea, that it would have taken in water on every side : and I have heard the marinera often declare, that there is more hazard in these seas than in going to the Eastern or Western Indies. The Fair-Isle (of which more afterward) is reckoned to be but eight leagues from Zetland, whereas it is about twelve or thirteen leagues from Orkney ; so that we shall consider it together with the isles belonging to Zetland.
Zetland consisteth of more isles than Orkney, whereof some are more, others less considerable, beside many holms serving for pasturage. The largest of them is that which they call the Mainland, sixty miles long from south or south and by west, to north or north and by east : as to breadth not all alike ; for though in some places it be sixteen miles, yet in others it is scarce one mile broad, it being so intersected with voes, sounds, or lochs, that it may be said to consist of a great number of promontories or branches of land stretching themselves into the sea.
All this country, consisting of so many isles, goeth under one common name, called by some Hethland, by others Zetland, and also Schetland. The etymology of which names is very uncertain, as was that of Orkney, some assigning one reason of the name, and others another, at their pleasure : that which seemeth most probable is, that this country is called Hethland, because it is very mountainous, and riseth high above the waters ; so a high land in Norse is called Hughland : it is called Zeland, or Zetland, because of the great sea wherewith on all hands it is encompassed, zee being sea in that language ; and called Schetland, because of a kind of custom or tribute called Scat, which they paid to their Norwegian masters when they were in possession of this country, and the tribute or custom imposed upon the inhabitants of Norway to this day is called Scat ; and though Zetland be now annexed to the crown of Scotland, yet there is a certain rent or due, which the gentlemen and some others here do pay yearly to the King or his steward, which is still called Scat. I say, although we cannot be positive in determining the reasons of the name, yet it seems to be of a Norwegian or Danish original.
Seeing I have already had under consideration by whom Orkney was first planted and inhabited, and how it hath been disposed of hitherto, I judge it not very needful for me to add any more to that purpose concerning Zetland ; for it is more than probable, that about the same time, by the same persons, hath Zetland also been inhabited, seeing there are many more Picts houses remaining there, and some of them as to outward appearance in better case, than are to be found in Orkney, and always our historians in their descriptions of these northern isles of Orkney and Zetland have reckoned them as under the government of the same masters ; therefore without further premising preliminaries of this nature, I come to consider the present state of the country.
Although the country be large, yet it is in many places but thinly inhabited, and that for the most part upon the coasts, and indeed otherwise it cannot well be, for there are few, if any, places in Zetland but they are within two miles of the sea, which they incline to dwell nigh unto, being more convenient for their fishing, and for the gooding of their land, which is ordinarily by sea-ware, hence, it would be incommodious for them upon these accounts to be at any distance from it. Besides, the country is generally mossy and mountainous, all covered over with heath, yea the far greater part thereof is as one great moss or quagmire made up of water and earth blended together, which kind of ground would require much labour and expence to bring in either to be grazing or corn land, if at all in many places they could get it done ; for from Scalloway on the west side of the Mainland, to Lerwick on the east side thereof, four miles over land, it is but a continued tract of moss and moor, so that there is not one house all that way, till we come near unto Lerwick; whereas we would think that this piece of ground should be better inhabited than many others, considering the great resort of strangers in the summer time thereunto, if nature had not laid such inconveniences in the way, which would prove so difficult to overcome.
The people are generally discreet and civil, not so rustic and clownish as would be expected in such a place of the world, which may be much owing to their converse and commerce with strangers, who repair to these isles in the summer season, with whom the inhabitants do keep a constant bartering or trade ; which trading, as it makes them the better to live, so it may tend not a little to the cultivating of their manners. They are also very fashionable in their cloaths, and the gentry want not their fine stuffs, such as Holland, Hamburgh, &c. do afford, so that they are to be seen in as good an order and dress as with us in the south : the boors, fishers; and other country people, also do go honest-like and decent in their apparel, as becometh their station.
They also have always been in repute for hospitality, and indeed we have seen no other to contradict that which is spoken so much to their commendation and praise ; for at any time when we had occasion to visit gentlemen, merchants, or others, we were always by them kindly entertained ; and so much are they said to be given to this commendable piece of humanity, that if they do purchase any thing from foreign merchants, which they put any value upon, such as wheat-bread, some strong liquor, &c. even the country people will not use it themselves, but reserve it for the entertainment of strangers. As for those old inhabitants of the Danish blood, of whom it was said, " that they were seeming fair, but really false, and superlatively proud," they are much worn out of this country ; and if at any time ships be driven ashore upon their coasts, the inhabitants use very kindly and humanely to treat the distressed company, of which humane treatment a ship belonging to the Firth had a late experience, being broke on the coast there in December last, as some of the ship's company informed me. Such a kind and generous reception merchants and mariners meet not with in many places upon which they are unhappily cast, from whom better things would be expected. In the matters of God and religion, the body of the people are said to be very ignorant, by those who know them better than we can be supposed to have had access to do, considering the short time of our stay and abode among them ; which may be imputed to their want of convenient schools for the instruction of their youth in many places of the country ; which also was assigned as the reason why ignorance doth so much prevail in the Orkney isles ; which great evil, the mother and leader of many others, all should labour to redress as they are severally called and concerned, authority also interposing their command, and not denying their countenance and encouragement thereunto.
Yet we must say that the people do frequent the dispensing of gospel ordinances, and seem to hear with some measure of attention and reverence, and, as appeared to us, not without some seriousness and concern upon their spirits, which after hearing continued with some, as we found by our converse with them ; which encouraged us to set and keep up two week-day sermons at Lerwick during our stay in the bounds, which the people thronged unto, thereby shewing great respect to the ordinances dispensed by us ; so that matters looked far otherwise than what was expected by ourselves and many others before we came to this country. And indeed, after conference upon this head, all of us judged, that if things were got put into a better order, and some evils removed, which I forbear to mention, knowing that they will come under the cognizance and consideration of others, who are in a capacity to redress them, there might be a harvest through grace.
Although there be a Latin school at Kirkwall in Orkney, yet there is none in all this country, which cannot but be very prejudicial to the inhabitants, the advancement of the education of their youth being thereby hindered, many promising and pregnant ingenys lost, and letters discouraged ; for gentlemen are either obliged to keep their children at home, and so they must want that piece of learning which tends so much to form and polish their minds, and to complete them as gentlemen, or else send them to other countries where education is to be had, which many are averse to do, not only because of the charge and expence they will be at, but also of the fear they will be in, in sending their children over sea, and keeping them so long at such a distance from them. As for chaplains, though they could be had, which would be with difficulty in this corner, yet all gentlemen who have children to educate cannot well bear the charges of bringing them over from Scotland, and keeping them with them for so long a time : whereupon the ministers there are very desirous that the government may be addressed for encouragement to school-masters through the country, and particularly that a Latin school be set up either at Lerwick or Scalloway.
English is the common language among them, yet many of the people speak Norse, or corrupt Danish, especially such as live in the more northern isles ; yea, so ordinary is it in some places, that it is the first language their children speak. Several here also speak good Dutch, even servants, though they have never been out of the country, because of the many Dutch ships which do frequent their ports. And there are some who have something of all these three languages, English, Dutch, and Norse. The Norse hath continued ever since the Norwegians had these isles in possession ; and in Orkney (as hath been said) it is not quite extinct, though there be by far more of it in Zetland, which many do commonly use.
It is observable that the names of the descendants of the old inhabitants differ from the names of others now numerous among them, for these only have a name without a sirname, save what is taken from their father's name, and by adding son or daughter thereunto ; exemp. gra. Agnes Magnus daughter ; her own name is Agnes, her father's is Magnus, to which daughter is added, which is the whole denomination or designation under which such a woman goes : so Marion, Peter's daughter ; Laurens, John's son, &.c. which they say is yet the Danish way of expressing and distinguishing names : and for further clearing, if there be two men or women of the same name, they use also to design thein by the places where they ordinarily reside, as Agnes Magnus daughter in Trebister, that so she may be discriminated from another woman of the same name living in another place. It is probable that hence flowed these sirnames, such as Williamson, Robertson, Jamieson, Davidson, &c. which do abound with us in Scotland. In some words also their pronunciation doth differ from that of ours ; as for instance, they often use to leave out the letter h in their pronunciation, as if it did not belong to the word ; so three they pronounce as tree, thou as tou or tu, &c. They have also some Norish words which they commonly use, which we understood not till they were explained ; such as air, which signifies a sand-bank ; oyse, an inlet of the sea ; voe, a creek or bay, &.c. : and these words are much used both in Zetland and Orkney.
It would appear that the country is now much better inhabited than formerly some ages ago it hath been ; for we hear but of few who leave this country, having once fixed their abode therein, though there be many who have lately come to it from Orkney, Caithness, Sutherland, Buchan, and other places, especially in the north of Scotland : so that in all Lerwick, the most considerable town in the country, there are but very few whose grand-fathers have lived in those isles. And in Lerwick itself, about thirty years ago, there were only four houses, and some years before there were none at all, though now there are between two and three hundred families in it.
Though the ground be generally bad, and the climate cold, yet it is not unwholesome living here, as appears from the many vigorous old people that abound in the isles, whose health I think is rather more firm and sound than with us ; neither are they liable to such frequent sickness : whether this is to be imputed to the freeness and purity of the air, or to the quality of their diet, or the sobriety of their living, or to all these and the like, I shall not judge : yet they tell us they used to live much longer in former ages than now they do ; as of one Tairvile, who lived one hundred and eighty years, and all his time never drank beer or ale : his son also and grand-children lived to a good old age, who seldom or never drank any other thing- save milk, water, and their country-bland. It is said also that this Tairvile's father lived longer than himself. There was also one Laurentius, in the parish of Waes, whose heir-oyes do yet live there, who arrived at a great age, whom Buchanan mentioneth that he lived in his time, marrying a wife after the hundredth year of his age, and in the one hundred and fortieth went a fishing with his little boat when the sea was tempestuous. Salubritatis firmitudo in Laurentio quodam nostra aetate apparuit, qui post centesimum annum uxorem duxit : centesimum quadragesimum annum agens, saevissimo mare in suâ naviculâ pisçatum prodibat : ac nuper nulla vi gravioris morbi labefactatus, sed senio solutus decessit. For surely, as all skilful physicians do grant, there is nothing more conducive to the maintaining of a sound and healthful constitution than a sober and regular diet ; whereas they who live otherwise, to speak with respect to second causes, do impair their health, and cut themselves off often in the midst of their days ; especially such as feed high, and indulge themselves in drinking strong liquors, which tends to the exhausting of that natural and innate heat, the fountain of our animal life ; whereas it is observed of all these who arrived at such a great age, that they seldom, if ever, drank any strong liquor.
There is no sickness or disease this country is more subject unto than the scurvy, as is Orkney likewise, which is occasioned doubtless by,their salt-meats, fishes, upon which many for the most part do live, sea-air, &c. : and sometimes this scurvy degenerates into a kind of leprosy, which they call a Bastard-scurvy, and is discerned by hairs falling from the eye-brows, the nose falling in, &c. ; which when the people come to know, they separate and set them apart, for fear of infection, building huts or little houses for them in the field : I saw the ruins of one of these houses about half a mile from Lerwich, where a woman was for some years kept for this reason. This bastard-leprosy they judge is caused by the many grey fishes, such as sillucks, piltocks, &c. which they eat ; for bread failing many of the people in the summer-time, that often for four or five months they will not taste thereof, these fishes are almost their only meat, and especially the livers of these fishes, which are thought to be more unhealthful than the fishes themselves, and they much incline to eat, do occasion this. The drinking also of hot bland (which is a kind of a serum, of milk, of which more afterwards) together with these fishes, do beget such corrupt humours, to the distempering of the body. These scorbutic persons are more ordinarily in Dunrossness and Delton, and more rare in other places, and that because they have more grey fishes in these two parishes, than in others.
And it hath been observed often by the inhabitants, that when in holy providence any sickness cometh upon, or breaketh up in, the country, it useth to go through them like a plague ; so that, since we came off, the small-pox hath seized upon many, both old and young, and was so universal, that upon one Lord's day there were ninety prayed for in the church of Lerwick, all sick of the same disease ; whereas, when we were there a few weeks before, there was not one that we knew sick thereof. They say a gentleman's son in the country, who had lately gone from the south, and was under it when he came home, brought it with him, which very quickly spread among the people, the old as well ¦ as the young ; and so sad have been the desolating effects thereof, that one told me, who arrived here lately from the place, that he verily judgeth the third part of the people in many of the isles are dead thereof.
Although many of the inhabitants have each their particular trades and employments, wherein more especially they lay out themselves, and are taken up about, yet are they all generally some way acquainted with the sea, and can with some dexterity and skill attained by experience manage their boats, not only because of their frequent passing from isle to isle, and going over the voes or lochs, which lie in upon and cut the Mainland, but by reason of their great fishing, not only for their own use, but for the use of merchants who buy their fishes, or give them the value in foreign commodities : hence moat of the inhabitants not only have some pasturage for their cattle, and some corn land about their houses which they manure, but also their parts of boats, for the end aforesaid. Yet there are many who follow no trade but their fishing.
Beside their fish trade with foreign merchants, they do likewise drive a great trade with Orkney, from which every year several boats do pass to Zetland, loaden with corns, meal, malt, &c. upon the coming whereof they often wait for barley-seed, though the last year they had a considerable crop, so that the barley-seed was sown before the boats came over. The Orkney men also bring sometimes stockings, ale, and the like, which they know to be vendible here : hence every year considerable sums of money go from Zetland to Orkney, and some have told me that most of the money they have in Orkney is from Zetland. So great is the advantage that these isles do reap by their neighbourly commerce with one another, for as Zetland could not well live without Orkney's corns, so neither could Orkney be so well without Zetland's money.
As Orkney have much of their money from Zetland, so Zetland have all theirs from foreign nations and countries, whose merchants traffic with them, as from Holland, Hamburg, Breme, &c. The Dutch money doth ordinarily pass among them, as stivers, half-stivers, and since the rates of the money were raised in Scotland, many here have been considerable gainers by the ducket-douns, which is the species of money that the Hollanders bring more ordinarily with them.
The king's rents are but the third part of what they are in Orkney ; for though this country be by far greater and more spacious than Orkney, yet it is not so well inhabited, neither is the ground so good : these rents are paid to the taxmen in butter, oil, and money ; the oU is made of the livers of fishes, and is sent south for the making of soap, or is otherwise disposed of, as may be most advantageous. The bishops had no rents from this country ; and though it belongs to the diocese of Orkney, and is a considerable part of that charge, yet we did not hear that ever any of these soul pastors of their dioceses, as some are pleased to call them, visited these bounds.
There being so little corn-land here is the cause why none of the revenues of the crown are paid in meal-or corns, whereas in Orkney it is far otherwise, as hath been said ; for any corn-land they have is ordinarily but a few ridges nigh to the coasts, for at any distance from the sea, and in many places also nigh unto it, there is nothing but a mossy and mountainous desert, covered with hadder, and only some places plenished with a few kine, sheep, or shelties, though in other places you will go some miles and see none This moss and moor, which so much aboundeth, renders travelling very dangerous, even to the natives themselves, and so deep is it in many places, and that in the summer and droughty season, that horses cannot pass it, and men on foot not without difficulty and hazard; as in the isle of Yell, the minister, in going to the church from his house, is obliged to go on foot eight miles almost wading up to the knees. And indeed the easiest and safest way of travelling is by sea in boats about the skirts of the isles, which also is not without danger.
And though the greatest part of this country be thus mossy and moorish, yet there are some pleasant spots in it, well furnished with grass and corn, as nigh to Scalloway, Ustness, &c. in the Mainland, some places in the parishes of Dunrossness also on the main, in the isle of Unst, &c. Hence some years they will have twenty-fold of increase, but this is more rare, for at other times, in several places, they will scarce have the double of their seed. They make much use of barley-bread, which appears to be fairer than their oat-bread, for their barley they take to be the best grain, it agreeing better with the ground than oats. And as it is in Orkney, so it is here, if any white corn be brought unto the country for seed, it will soon degenerate and become like their own.
I think the kine and sheep are of a greater size than they are in Orkney, though their horses be of a less ; as for the sheep, I take them to be little less than they are in many places of Scotland ; they lamb not so soon as with us, for at the end of May their lambs are not come in season ; their harvest also is much later, for they judge it very early if they get their corns in against the middle of October ; they observe that our seasons will be two months before theirs, but 1 do not think they differ so much.
If their sheep were well kept, it would be very pleasant to behold them in flocks, they being of divers colours : some of a pied, others of a brown, others of a brown and white, others of a black colour, some also have black spraings on their backs, others on their foreheads ; and some say they have as great a number of black sheep as they have of white; which diversity of colours would render them very beautiful, if they were taken due care of ; for they neither wash nor clip their sheep, nor have they any sheers for that end, but pull the wool off them with their hands ; which, as it is painful to the beasts, so it makes them look not so well favoured, but like these with us, whose wool is scratched with briars or thorns.
Their ordinary drink is milk or water, or milk and water together, or a drink which they call Bland, most common in the country, though not thought to be very whole-some ; which so they make up, having taken away the butter from their churned milk, as likewise the thicker parts of this milk which remains after the butter is taken out, they then pour in some hot water upon the serum, whey, or the thinner part of the milk, in a proportion to the milk. Which being done, they make use of for their drink, keeping some for their winter provision : and this drink is so ordinary with them, that there are many people in the country who never saw ale or beer in all their lifetime ; the ale is rare among them, they making bread of much of their barley-grain, but the Hamburgh beer, both small and strong, is to be had in plenty, though at a good rate, six shillings or eight shillings our pint ; which beer and other liquore, as also wheat-bread, the Hamburghere bring with them in the month of May for sale ; hence some-times liquore, as beer, ale, &c. cannot be had for money, till the Hamburghere bring it.
The great confluence of strangers makes kine, sheep, hens, and almost all victuals, to sell at a greater rate than in Orkney, for often, when the busses are here, they will give double or triple for a sheep, or a hen, than it is to be bought in Orkney for ; for the Hollanders with their busses being numerous on these coasts, they send sometimes ashore to buy fresh meats, which, if to be had, they will not want for the price.
They have fowls, especially sea fowls, in great plenty, which do frequent the rocks, holms, &c. which they take as they do in Orkney, and are very beneficial to the proprietors. There are also many eagles, which do great prejudice and hurt to the country ; for the lambs they will lift up in their claws, and take whole to their nests, and falling down upon the sheep, they fix one foot on the ground and the other on the sheep's back, which they having so apprehended, they first pick out their eyes, and then use the carcases as they please. all sorts of duck and drake, dunter-geese, cleck-geese, ember-geese, &c. they have as in Orkney.
They have many crows, but neither here nor in Orkney are they of that colour which they are of with us ; for their heads, wings, and tail, only are black, but their back and breast from the neck to the tail are of a grey colour, and the country people look upon it as a bad omen, when black crows come to these isles, they portending that a famine will shortly ensue.
There are many conies in some places, but no hares, neither are there any moor-fowls, which are numerous in Orkney ; some say that a few from Orkney have been brought over for trial, but they could not live here : no poddocks or frogs are to be seen, though many in Orkney. Neither are there any rats to be found, except in some isles, and these are greater than ordinary, and thought to come out of ships, when riding at anchor nigh to the shore, but they have mice in abundance. Neither are there any venomous creatures in these isles. They have many otters, one of which was so tamed, that it frequently used to bring fishes out of the sea to a gentleman's house in Huskashie, as one told me who knew the truth thereof.
They have a sort of little horses called shelties, than which no other are to be had, if not brought hither from other places ; they are of a less size than the Orkney horses, for some will be but nine, others ten nives or hand-breadths high, and they will be thought big horses there if eleven ; and although so small, yet are they full of vigour and life, and some not so high as others often prove to be the strongest, yea there are some whom an able man can lift up in his arms, yet will they carry him and a woman behind him eight miles forward, and as many back : summer or winter they never come into a house, but run upon the mountains in some places in flocks, and if at any time in winter the storm be so great that they are straitened for food, they will come down from the hills, when the ebb is in the sea, and eat the sea-ware, (as likewise do the sheep ;) which winter storm and scarcity of fodder puts them out of case, and bringeth them so very low, that they recover not their strength till about St. John's mass day, the 24th of June, when they are at their best : they will live till a considerable age, as twenty-six, twenty-eight, or thirty years, and they will be good riding in twenty-four, especially they will be the more vigorous and live the longer, if they be four years old before they be put to work. These of a black colour are judged to be the most durable, and the pied often prove not so good ; they have been more numerous than now they are ; the best of them are to be had in Sanston and Eston, also they are good in Waes and Yell, these of the least size are in the northern isles of Yell and Unst.
The coldness of the air, the barrenness of the mountains on which they feed, and their hard usage, may occasion them to keep so little, for if bigger horses be brought into the country, their kind within a little time will degenerate ; and, indeed, in the present case we may see the wisdom of Providence, for their way being deep and mossy in many places, these lighter horses come through, when the greater and heavier would sink down : and they leap over ditches very nimbly, yea up and down rugged mossy braes or hillocs, with heavy riders upon them, which I could not look upon but with admiration, yea I have seen them climb up braes upon their knees, when otherwise they could not get the height overcome, so that our horses would be but little, if at all serviceable there.
The great fishing which they have upon the coasts makes the place desirable to the natives, and. to be frequented by strangers, it excelling any other place of the king of Britain's dominions for herring, white and grey fishing ; the white fishing they call the killin and ling, &c. their grey the silluks and seths ; there are also sometimes very strange fishes here to be found, as about twenty-four years ago there came a great number of small thick fishes into a voe on the south side of Neston ; they were of a golden colour, very pleasant to behold, they were about the bigness of an ordinary trout, and all of an equal size ; they being very numerous, the country made much use of them, who judged them very savoury, tasting like a turbot ; and never before or since that time were these fishes seen in these seas, as my informer, an old gentleman, could remember. Their tusk is a rare fish, but more ordinary with them, of which more when we come to speak of their fishing. Also many rare shells are to be found on the coasts, but we had not time to inquire and look after them.
Through the isles, for fewel, they have good peats in abundance, though in some places they are at a distance from them, as those who live in the Skerries are obliged to bring them from other isles, as from Whalsey, and the passage being dangerous, many boats are cast away with them ; some also living in Dunrossness are at a loss this way, they not having the moss at hand, as generally they have in other places on the Main. Much broken timber also is driven ashore upon these isles, so that the inhabitants of the Skerries trust the one half of their provision to this driven timber, and broken ships in great quantity often cast ashore, partly through the many ships that split on these isles, and partly as the wreck of ships cast away at some distance, which is brought here by the ebb from Norway, or other places lying to the east of Zetland.
There are no trees in this country more than in Orkney ; we saw some old white and weather-beaten stocks standing in Scalloway ; for whatever reasons may be alledged for trees not growing in Orkney, far more do I judge they will hold in Zetland, both with respect to the air and to the soil ; there are also at Scalloway some goose and rizzer-berry bushes, which use every year to be laden with fruit, which are a great rarity in this place of the world.
Many excellent herbs are found growing here, though little known or made use of: a certain English physician and skilled botanist, who was at Lerwick some years ago, told our host that there were many choice and rural herbs here, not to be found in England. They have much scurvy-grass, God so ordering it in his wise providence that juxta venenum nascitur antidotum, that seeing the scurvy is the common disease of the country, they should have the remedy at hand.
There is here much lime-stone, (though for aught I heard not to be found in Orkney) which in some places they have but lately come to the knowledge of, as in Unst but about four years since, and in other places they know not yet how to use it ; the pariah of Tingwal (they say) consists almost of lime-stone, they having few if any other stones than such.
The stones wherewith they build are generally broad, and like flag-stones ; by reason of which figure and shape the stones lying the more easily, the builders are at less trouble in fitting them for the wall ; and I have observed that in some houses there is little lime, clay, or any such thing for cementing of the building, which renders their dwelling so much the colder, the piercing air passing through between the chinks of the stones, which they have no need of under this cold and airish climate. But some of these houses they may designedly so build, that the wind may have free passage through them for drying of their fishes, which houses some call skeos.
There are several superstitious customs and practices which the more ignorant people follow, some of which we will have occasion to note in the sequel of this discourse, but not so many did we hear of, as there in Orkney. But I hope the vigilance and diligence of our church in inspecting these isles, and putting all to their duty, will prove a blessed mean, in the hand of God, for the eradicating and utter abolishing of these relicts of paganism and idolatry.
Sailing about these coasts is often very dangerous, whence the waters prove graves to many of the inhabitants. While we were there, in the month of May, a boat was cast away going by the shore to Dunrossness, and a man and his sister therein perished, and another man in ber was saved by getting upon the keel of the boat ; and some-times boats are cast away when not one saved. About the isles are many blind rocks, which the natives sometimes unhappily fall and break upon, either through a mistake, or the tide and wind driving them upon them : at other times the wind rising, causeth the sea so to swell, that the waves breaking upon their small boats are ready to overset them, and sometimes do : also, though the winds be not so strong, there will come Hans and blasts off the land as to their swiftness and surprisal something like to hurricanes, which beating with a great impetus or force upon their sails, overturns the boat, and in a moment hurries them into eternity : by such a flan the laird of Munas, a gentleman of this country, is said to have perished the former year, 1699, when within sight of his own house, and all that were in the boat with him, said to be nine or ten persons, save one servant, who escaped upon the keel. I remember that night we came to the land of Zetland our seamen thought fit in their prudence not to sail too nigh the land, for fear of such flans. " O to be as watchmen on our towers, looking out and waiting for the Lord's coming."
For this cause it is, that during the winter season they have ordinarily converse or commerce with none, except that ships be driven in by stress of weather ; for the open boats dare not come, and the close-decked not without danger, the sea commonly at that time being so tempestuous, the tides and rousts so rapid, that they threaten all who come near them with being swallowed up : therefore it is, as they tell us, that from October till April or May they ordinarily see no strangers, nor know any news, which makes the winter so much the longer and wearisome unto them : an instance whereof we had, that the late Revolution, when his highness the prince of Orange, our present king, was pleased to come Over to assert our liberties, and deliver us from our fears, falling out in the winter, it was May thereafter before they heard any thing of it ; and that first they say from a fisherman, whom some would have had arraigned before them, and impeached of high treason because of his news, as some did inform us.
Their country lying very open, and in many places but thinly inhabited, exposeth them to the hostile incursions of pirates in a time of war, as of late the French did much infest their coasts ; some of their men landing did by shot kill their kine and sheep, and take them away with them ; yea sometimes they spared not the churches, but sacrilegiously robbed them, pulling down the timber thereof, as seats, &c. and taking them for burnwood ; so they did to a church in North Mevan. But they never came into Brassa Sound, lest they had been locked up within land, winds turning contrary.
In the month of June they have a clear light all the night over, for at the darkest hour thereof you will see clearly to read a letter ; the sun setteth between ten and eleven at night, and riseth between one and two in the morning, but for this they have so much the shorter day and longer night in the winter.
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