ABERDEEN TO THE SHETLANDS. 3 



the game-bags have been so well filled." Then doubt 

 is cast upon these returns by the Opposition. What 

 are we to believe, when a Banffshire paper puts the 

 Maharajah " Donald Singh" at the head of the list 

 with 140 brace; and a Perthshire authority will 

 have it that they were " principally cheepers," and 

 that " the editor and head compositor could have done 

 as good work with sticks" ? They know no such joys 

 and disputes where we are going. In fact, they have 

 no papers ; and the quiet natives pore with deep in- 

 terest over the Orcadian's tale of the lapwing, which 

 lost its young ones in a ditch, and died of grief on the 

 spot. Now a new interest presents itself in the shape 

 of a young English tourist, who is quite bomb-proof, 

 and always exhorting the passengers to make an 

 effort, and come upon deck to see something. 

 " Come up, indeed !" as we told him " No, not to see 

 the last of the water-bulls from the loch ofOlginmore." 

 The seas have been " restless" in these parts time 

 out of mind, but they were nothing to him. In 

 another quarter of an hour, he is among us again. 

 He has conceived the idea of throwing a bottle over 

 board with a joint statement that we have been ship- 

 wrecked in a brig about this date, and are floating in 

 Northern latitudes, with only biscuits on a spar. He 

 will become a subscriber, he says, to the Orkney and 

 Caithness papers for a quarter ; and if they ever no- 

 tice that bottle, which he is convinced they will, we 

 can be communicated with at our respective addresses. 

 One of the passengers consents to " sign anything 



