56 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



lilac-grey, to be flattering. One or two of them painted 

 white and a black steamer or two on their sea-front give relief 

 to the greyness, and the white steam from their banked fires 

 gives a slight sense of life and joins the grey below to the 

 grey above. Always Lerwick seems instinct with this sense 

 of coming life ; here it always seems to be on the point of 

 dawn or beginning of twilight. 



Not all the herring-boats, herring men and herring women 

 that congregate here in summer, not even the most brilliant 

 blue summer day, can do away with this twilight ; people 

 and boats come and go but Lerwick preserves the same 

 pleasing grey expression of quiet reserve. 



To let you into the secret, Lerwick and the Shetlands are 

 slightly anaemic ! The best blood of several countries has 

 been flowing into the islands for ages, yet always intelligence 

 remains in excess of physical vigour, always the Scots and 

 Norse say: "Let us go and make use of these islands." 

 " Look at the wealth there is there of sea-fish and sea-birds," 

 says the Norseman, " give me one little island there and I 

 will envy no man. " But they forget their starting-points are 

 lands of assured summer, where trees grow (and, for Norse- 

 men, where wild fruit ripens), and they come, and have come, 

 conquering or peacefully hunting, catching sea-trout, whales 

 or herring, and either go away again, or stay, and become 

 like the islanders anaemic, and slightly socialistic, and lose 

 the sense of industrial enterprise, and other people come and 

 take the herring and whales and sea-trout from their doors. 



It is greatly a matter of geographical position and climatic 

 conditions. The one tree that grows on the islands could 

 tell you this if you could hear it speak to you of its struggle 

 for existence. 



