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cell being that smooth glassy oilylooking eddy, the force of which seems to the eye almost resistless. The appearance of the waves bursting in foam around these strange eddies, by which their swell is broken and intersected, has a bewildering and confused appearance, which it is impossible to describe. Get off the Skerries about 10 o'clock, and land easily. It is the first time a boat has got there for several days. Skerries is an island, so called, containing about 60 acres of fine short herbage, belonging to Lord Dundas. It is surrounded by a reef of precipitous rocks, not very high, but almost inaccessible, unless where the ocean has made indentations among them, and where stairs have been cut down to the water for the light-house service. These inlets have a romantic appear ance, and have been christened by the sailors, the Parliament House, the Seal's Lying-in Hospital, &c. The last inlet, after rushing through a deep chasm, which is open over head, 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 hor rid 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. The light-house is too low, and on the old construction; yet it is of the last importance; for, before

this light-house was established, ves sels were obliged to go round the whole Orcadian archipelago, or to involve themselves on the hazardous and complicated passages of the firths of Westra, or North Ronaldsha, rather than attempt the Pentland firth, where those unhappy Skerries lie, forming the salient angle of a triangle between the islands of Swona and Stroma, to catch any ship that might pass between them. But now the lighthouse renders the Pentland firth quite accessible at the proper hours of tide. There are about fifty head of cattle on the island, belonging to Lord Dundas's tenant. They must be got ashore 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 up in summer, and the cattle are reduced to great straits. Leave the isle about one, and the wind and tide being favourable, crowd all sail, and get on for half an hour at the rate of almost fourteen miles an hour. Soon reach our old anchorage at the Long Hope, and passing it, stand to the northwestward upon the Sound of Hoy for Stromness;-I should have mentioned, that in going down the Pentland firth this morning, we saw John-o'-Groat'shouse, or rather the place where it stood, now occupied by a store house. Our pilot opined, there was no such man as John-o'-Groat, for he says, he cannot hear that any body ever saw him. This reasoning would put down most facts of antiquity. They gather shells on the shore called John-o'-Groat's buckies. I may here add, that the interpretation given to wells may apply to the wells of Slane, in the fine ballad of Clerk Colvin. Such eddies, in the romantic vicinity of Slane's Castle, would be a fine

place for a mermaid. Our wind fails us, and what is worse, becomes westerly. The Sound has now the ap pearance of a beautiful land-locked bay, the passages between the islands being scarce visible.

We have a superb view of Kirkwall cathedral, with a strong gleam of sunshine upon it. We see it by looking up the bay called Scapa flow, which indents the Island of Pornonan, and so over the narrow isthmus of land between that bay and Kirkwall. Gloomy weather begins to collect around us, particularly on the island of Hoy, which, covered with gloom and vapour, now assumes a majestic and mountainous character. On Pomona we pass the hill of Ophir. This Ophir of the north must not be confounded with the Ophir of the south. From the former came gold, silver, and precious stones, the latter seems to produce little except peats; yet these are precious commodities, which some of the Orkney isles altogether want, and, in lieu of them, burn the turf of their lands instead of importing coal from Newcastle.

There are remains of the Norwegian descent of the Orcadians in their names and language, particularly in N. Ronaldsha, an isle I regret we did not see. They still speak a little

Norse, and indeed I hear every day words of that language, for instance, Jokull. We creep slowly up Hoy. Sound, working under the Pomona shore, but there is no hope of reaching Stromness till we have the assistance of the evening tide.

The channel now seems like a Highland loch, not the least ripple on the waves; the passage is narrowed, and (to the eye) blocked up by the interference of the green, and ap. parently fertile, isle of Gramsay, the property of Lord Armadale. Hoy looks yet grimmer from comparing its black and steep mountains with the 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 Davis's Straits, large strong ships which pass us successively, with all their sails set, enjoying the little wind that is. Many of these vessels display the garland, that is, a wreath of ribbands which the young fellows on board have got from their sweethearts, or came by otherwise, which hangs between the fore-mast and main-mast, 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.

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