OCCUPATION OF THE PEOPLE. 189 



In my sixth attempt, however, three years ago, I was 

 more fortunate, though even then it was with some 

 difficulty. The frith between North Ronaldshay and 

 Sanday is a very dangerous one, and the wind and tide 

 must be carefully consulted. If you start too late to 

 reach it before the turn of the tide, you are almost 

 inevitably carried back to your starting point, unless the 

 wind be all the more favourable. 



A. friend of mine, with his wife and some ladies, had 

 once got within gun-shot of the shore as the tide turned, 

 when, caught in the fringe of it, they were carried off as 

 in a mill-stream, and in a very short time were miles off. 



It is very flat, the highest elevation being only 47 feet. 

 What strikes one at first sight as most peculiar, is a dry 

 tone wall, between five and six feet high, with small 

 holes left at regular intervals. It stretches along the 

 beach as far as you can see, and is but a little above high- 

 water mark. You are still more surprised to learn that 

 it goes right round the island. 



The purpose of this wall is very pnzzling to a stranger. 

 The island is a small one, only 4,000 acres. Can it be 

 meant to keep the young islanders from tumbling into the 

 sea ? or, if they are supposed to have more sense, is it to 

 keep the sheep from the shore, lest they should be swept 

 off by the waves which often play wildly there ? No, 

 but exactly the reverse. 



The wall was built for the double purpose of depriving 

 the winds as they pass through it of the saline vapour 

 which used to blight the crops, and of keeping the sheep 



