100 WANDERINGS AND MEMORIES 



and useful. The most curious part of it is the shark- 

 skin covering. A single piece of skin is wrapped 

 closely round the foot and gathered in at the top, 

 giving a puckered-up appearance, and is fastened 

 round the ankles by a bright-coloured woollen cord. 

 Many of the men carry the long whale -killing knife 

 called Grinda knivur. 



The town of Thorshavn was like any other Scan- 

 dinavian seaside village — groups of bare wooden 

 sheds, with white-painted windows and green turf 

 roofs, and on all the rocks and open beaches masses 

 of halibut, cod, ling, pollock, haddock and saithe 

 put out to dry for shipment to Spain and the West 

 Indies. 



There are no streets in Thorshavn, but you 

 stumble along winding alleys paved in places with 

 an outcrop of natural rock or a few stones flung 

 into the worst holes. The absence of roads in 

 Faroe is explained by the fact that there are no 

 wheeled vehicles in the islands. Everything is 

 carried on pony-back. Articles are packed in long 

 narrow crates resting on bundles of hay and a 

 sheepskin. These ponies are generally led and 

 rarely ridden as in Shetland. The horse of the 

 islands is slightly larger than the Iceland pony, 

 and is said to possess neither that wonderful nag's 

 endurance nor his surefootedness. In some of the 

 most isolated farmhouses, where ponies cannot 

 travel, it is the custom when a man dies to lash 

 his corpse to a plank of wood, which is then carried 

 on a man's back to the nearest cemetery. 



Under the able guidance of the English Consul, 

 Mr. Jacobsen, we saw the Governor's house, the 

 pride of Faroe, then the great tree of the island 



