ORKNEY. 151 CHAPTER XIII. ORKNEY - CATHEDRAL "PICTS' HOUSES AND KIRKWALL HEN THE HAITHENS ATE TAM NEEDIN' A SNUFF NORTH RONALDSAY - COLONEL BALFOUR-MAESHOWE AND THE ANTIQUARIES- FOR the first sixteen years of my official life, from 1860 to 1875, Orkney and Shetland formed part of the district under my charge. My last visit was in 1879. Since then more frequent communication, with an excellent service of steamers, has no doubt wrought many changes, and made these outlying islands much better known; but forty years ago they were so little known that many persons, in other respects well informed, thought of them as in some sort the refuse of creation-some of the rubbish for which no use could be found, and which had been tossed out into the great lumber-room of the ocean to be out of the way; inhabited by a race with whom the civilised world had no commun ion, living on fish, dressing in sealskin, gloriously ignorant of broadcloth, destitute of education, coming into the world and leaving it without benefit of clergy. Many thought they spoke Gaelic-not that that is any fault, only it is not the case. They are and have always been as ignorant of Gaelic as we are of Chinese. The general appearance of the Orkney group is flat, but there are some bold headlands over 1000 feet in height. No trees meet the eye except in some sheltered spots under the protecting care of large buildings. So long as young plantations are protected from the sea-breezes they grow well enough, but as soon as they show their heads above the sheltering wall they become stunted. Pomona or Mainland is by far the largest of the group, with a length of thirty, and a breadth of about eight, miles. The two largest towns are Kirkwall, the capital, and Stromness, with a population of 4000 and 1700 respectively. It is surprising to find that seven hundred years ago, on this extreme verge of civilisation, there arose a cathedral in Kirkwall, more perfect, very little smaller, and in some respects finer, than that of Glasgow. The architecture is Romanesque, with a little of the Early Pointed style. It is in good repair, and a KIRKWALL CATHEDRAL. 153 portion of it has been partitioned off and is used as a parish church. This part has been thoroughly spoiled by pews, ugly square windows, and unsightly galleries, as ill suited to the beautiful nave of the old cathedral as knickerbockers or a dress coat would be to a monk. Within an easy walk from Kirkwall is Wideford Hill, from the top of which nearly all the islands may be seen; and no one who goes there on a clear day will hesitate to admit that the scene before him, looking seaward, is one of exquisite beauty. In calm weather the sea, landlocked by the islands, resembles a vast lake, clear and bright as a mirror, and without a ripple save from the gentle impulse of the tide. Here a bluff headland stands out in bold relief against the horizon, there the more distant islet is almost lost in sea and sky; on one side a shelving rock sends out a black tongue-like point, sharp as a needle, losing itself in the water where it forms one of those reefs so fatal to strangers, but which every Orkney boatman knows as we do the streets of our native town. From this hill you can cast your eye on structures that are memorials of every form of religion that has ever existed in Scotland. Stennis and its standing-stones are in sight eight or ten miles off. Nearer to you are some of those inscrutable mounds called Picts' houses, which are found in great numbers all over the islands. On the Isle of Egilsay stand the walls of probably the earliest Christian church in Britain, with its peculiar cylindrical tower, of which there are only other two in Britain,-at Brechin and Abernethy,—and close beside you the cathedral and the churches of every considerable denomination in Scotland. The standing-stones of Stennis are still about thirty in number, forming portions of two incomplete circles, the larger being about a hundred yards in diameter, and the smaller upwards of thirty. The stones vary in form and size. The largest is about fourteen feet high, but the average height is from eight to ten. They are grand, solemn-looking old veterans, painfully silent regarding their past, as if ashamed to speak of the bloody rites in which they may have had a share. They were formerly called Druidical circles, perhaps for no better reason than that their history is utterly unknown. Of the mounds called Picts' houses we know as little. They are of two kinds, very similar in construction. The smaller seem to have been the dwellings of the early inhabitants of the country, and the others the sepulchres of their dead. Within the last sixty years great progress has been made in agriculture, but the thriftlessness of the farming in the first half of the nineteenth century is well illustrated by an anecdote I had from the proprietor of Shapinsay. His father, observing that one of his tenants was always in difficulties, though he did not pay a farthing of rent, said to him that he was surprised at his being so much in want, seeing that he had a good croft and paid nothing for it. "Oh, Captain Balfour," he replied, "I dae pay a rent." "Why, what rent do you pay?" "Weel, I sud pay a hen." He thus took shelter under the fact that a hen was exigible, but he did not venture to say it was paid. Another tenant, whose rent of 10s. had been in successive years reduced to 7s. 6d., 5s., and 2s. 6d., was at length for importunity's sake allowed to sit free. After a year or two he again presented himself on the rent day to the laird, who, at a loss to know what more he could want, said, "Well, Robert, do you wish a further reduction of rent?" "Oh, Captain," he replied, "ye're jokin' me noo; but I just cam to say that ye dinna big me a barn I maun flit." if An Orkney laird showed great dexterity in dealing with a tenant whom he knew to be fairly |