IN PEE, SHEPTLANDS 167 
into mist. I had meant to see the fulmar petrels 
again before returning, but by the time I get to the 
top of the path leading down to them it is nearly six, 
the drizzle increasing, and the mist on the hills thick- 
ening. The hut stands sufficiently high for it to be 
always enshrouded when a mist comes on, and it may 
then be difficult to strike. However, from the round 
house where the signals are shown, each morning, to 
the lighthouse on the great stack opposite, by a man 
who walks up from the village at the foot of the ness, 
there winds a foot-track with posts stuck at long inter- 
vals beside it. When one gets near to the fifth post 
one should see the hut if the mist is not very thick, 
and even if it is, one has then a good chance of strik- 
ing it. The signal-house, or rather shed, one may 
strike by going constantly upwards till the highest 
point is reached ; but it is possible to miss it, and also 
the track between post and post. As the gulls and 
the two kinds of skuas have each their separate 
breeding-place upon the ness—thus, as it were, map- 
ping it out—they, too, are of some assistance in 
finding one’s way. Still, the possibility of a night 
out at the end of any day is not a pleasant thing to 
think of, and I am always very glad when I see the 
hut through the mists, and still gladder when there 
are no mists to see it through. 
It seems wonderful that any corner of the United 
Kingdom can hold a summer like this—little as I 
mistake the United Kingdom for paradise. It is like 
a bad November in England, but with more of the 
