THE ORKNEYS TO THURSO. 39 



port at Lloyd's, Award and Sultan lost in the ice 

 crews saved, 3 said the fur-capped captain ; and off 

 it shot on its shadowy track. The whole scene read 

 like a passage from " The Phantom. Ship." 



Our mate was quite learned on the subject of sea- 

 sickness in animals, and esteemed pigs happy because 

 they can get relief. There is one advantage in look- 

 ing after a very sick horse for three hours and a- 

 half which we spent in actively checkmating its 

 efforts to back down the hatchway, or make a bone- 

 mill of the engine-room that we had no time to be 

 sick ourselves, and rode it out like a sea-gull. 



We were soon past the Orkney Lighthouse, and 

 labouring along two miles an hour against a heavy 

 tide 



" Where hawk and osprey scream for joy 

 Over the beetling cliffs of Hoy." 



The lyre birds, which are said to be great appetizers 

 before dinner, and so fat, that with a wick through 

 them they can do good candle-duty, haunt that (( Old 

 Man," who has had his share in many a hecatomb 

 of victims. Still the survivors, to quote the words 

 of a small farmer, when he requested Lord Macau- 

 lay' s uncle to marry him, would seem to have found 

 consolation : " Oh! sir, but the ways of Providence 

 are wonderful ! I thocht I had met with a sair mis- 

 fortune, when I lost baith my coo and my wife at 

 aince over the cliff, twa months sin; but I gaed over 

 to Graimsay, and I hae gotten a far better coo and a 

 far bonnier ivife" 



