286 LATER YEARS 



For the wind is in the sea-pinks, an' the Herrin' Gulls they say, 

 " Get you back, you Scottish reiver ; get you back to Mingulay ! 



Get you back to Mingulay ! 



Where the old Shiantelle lay, 

 Can't you 'ear 'er chains a-rattlin' from Oban to Mingulay ? 



On the road to Mingulay, 



Where the whales an' dolphins play, 

 An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer Skye to stop all day ! " 



'Er plumage was that mottled as she 1 sot upon the green, 

 She looked a perfec' beauty jus' the same as Sheba's queen, 

 An' I seed 'er first a-broodin' a whackin' piece o' loot, 

 A big white egg a-wastin' right underneath 'er foot, 



Bloomin' egg as white as chalk, 



't would make collectors walk 

 Plucky distance for to see it ; if they got it, 'ow they'd talk ! 



On the road to Mingulay ! 



(Hiatus valde defiendus.) 



Ship me somewhere north of Lewis, though the weather be accurst, 

 Where the decalogue's not in it, and the decapod * comes first ; 

 For the Herrin' Gulls are callin', and it's there that I would be, 

 By the old North Rona chapel, sloping southward to the sea. 



On the road to Mingulay, 



Where the old Shiantelle lay, 

 With the mushrooms 'neath the sunshine, gleaming white on Mingulay, 



On the road to Mingulay, 



Where the whales an' dolphins play, 

 An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer Skye to stop all day ! 



In June, 1893, they made a cruise to the Outer 

 Hebrides and to the Orkneys, where Newton visited one 

 of the famous haunts of the Gare-fowl. 



I had a delightful fortnight in Scottish waters, 

 afloat about ten days, and the weather, except for 

 24 hours, everything that could be desired. Even 

 that break had its benefit, for it made all the rest 

 the more enjoyable, and was not so very bad while it 

 lasted. I was carried through and around Orkney, 

 close alongside of the Holm of Papa Westray, where 

 Great Auks used to breed ; our good H.-B. and 

 Buckley did not appreciate that fact, and like the 

 celebrated Levite, passed by on the other side. 



* "The lobsters of the Outei Hebrides are first-rate." On this point 

 all voyagers agree, from the veneiable Dr. Johnson to the present time. 

 J.A.H.-B 



