474 OF Till-, COAST FROM CAPE WRATH 



ing in Ulmon, and gives employment to 60 nets, 

 which are (hot every night, and frequently fifh arc 

 found in each of them. This water, not being 

 fanned to flrangcrs, is of courfe a common bleffing 

 to the whole neighbourhood. But the great fiihery 

 is at Tluirlb, where the river falls into t and, 



if report be true, 2500 falmon have been taken in 

 one tide, within the memory of man. 



leaving Thurfo, we pafs Dunnet-head, the moil 

 northern land of Britain, with a tremendous tide on 

 oint of it ; and here commences the narrow ftrait 

 of 6 miles between the main land and the Orkney 

 iflands, called the Pentland or Pidtland firth ; fo nam- 

 ed from the Pidls, who inhabited the eaft fide of the 

 kingdom, while the S cots pofie (Ted the more rugged 

 parts on the weft fide. This ftrait is the great tho- 

 roughfare of (hipping between the eaftern and weft- 

 ern feas, the terror of the boldeft mariners, and the 

 grave of thoufands ; where the winter's ftorms afford 

 many natives, on the oppofite fhores, a better live- 

 lihood than they could obtain by fiihing or hufbandry. 

 They fearch from place to place, and from one ca- 

 vern to another, in the hopes of finding timber, 

 cafks, and other floating articles of the wrecked vef- 

 fels, of whom 6 or 8 are thus facrificed fometimes 

 in one night. 



The navigation of this pafs is rendered more dan- 

 gerous by the ifland of Stroma, and two rocks called 

 the Skerries, lying near die middle of it. Stroma 

 is noted for its natural mummies, being the entire 

 uncorrupted bodies of perfons who had been dead 

 above half a century ; light, flexible in their limbs, 

 of a'dufky colour, and on whofe bellies the boys 

 beat like a drum. The coffins are laid on ftools 

 above ground, in a vault, which being open on the 

 fea edge, and the rapid tides of the Pentland firth 

 running by it, there is iuch a conftant faltifti air as 

 hath thus converted the bodies into mummies. 



We now arrive at the eaftern extremity of the 



firth 



