12 A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY 
which are usually reckoned the northernmost land in 
Europe. It was dusk before we approached near 
enough to be able to have any thing of a good view 
of them. 
Saturday, 22d.— The breeze happened however to 
be so light during the night, that we only passed 
them between seven and eight o’clock this morning, 
and at such a distance (four or five miles), that we 
could see them very plainly. Rona appeared to be 
considerably larger than the other, and is, I under- 
stand, inhabited: their distance apart was estimated 
to be about eight miles. ‘Their appearance in every 
respect was similar to the Orkney islands, to which 
groupe indeed they may be considered to belong, 
although at a considerable distance from it. 
Whilst in the neighbourhood of these islands, we 
saw a great many sea-fowls, particularly of the Peterel 
tribe, (viz. Fulmar), and Kittiwake gull. These 
islands, like St. Kilda, and other solitary rocks in this 
part of the world, are particularly well calculated 
for the resort of sea-fowls; because, in the first 
place, they have around them a wide expanse of that 
element from which they derive their food ; and, in 
the second place, the inaccessible precipices which 
here and there overhang the sea, afford them asylums . 
to build their nests in, which the daring inhabitants, 
with all their intrepidity, cannot always molest. 
We threw a quart bottle overboard this afternoon, 
containing half a sheet of foolscap paper, on which was 
printed, in six different languages, a request that the 
person who should happen to pick it up, should send 
it to the Secretary of the Admiralty, or the Minister 
ot Marine, of the country to which the person be- 
longed, with a note of the time and place where it 
