460 RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST. 



powers and formidable proportions, which he had at first 

 attempted to capture, but which had shown fight, and had 

 nearly captured him in turn. "Weel, weel, let a-be for let 

 a-be," he is made to say ; " if thou doesna clutch me in thy 

 grips, I'se no clutch thee in mine." It is to this primitive 

 parish that David Vedder, the sailor-poet of Orkney, refers, 

 in his " Orcadian Sketches," as " celebrated over the whole 

 archipelago for the peculiarities of its inhabitants, their sin- 

 gular manners and habits, their uncouth appearance, and 

 homely address. Being the most landward district in Po- 

 mona," he adds, " and consequently having little intercourse 

 with strangers, it has become the stronghold of many ancient 

 customs and superstitions, which modern innovation has 

 pushed from off their pedestals in almost all the other parts 

 of the island. The permanency of its population, too, is 

 mightily in favour of ' old use and wont,' as it is almost en- 

 tirely divided amongst a class of men yclept pickie, or petty 

 lairds, each ploughing his own fields and reaping his own 

 crops, much in the manner their great-great-grandfathers did 

 in the days of Earl Patrick. And such is the respect which 

 they entertain for their hereditary beliefs, that many of them 

 are said still to cast a lingering look, not unmixed with re- 

 verence, on certain spots held sacred by their Scandinavian 

 ancestors." 



After an early dinner I set out for the barony of Birsay, 

 in the northern extremity of the mainland, accompanied by 

 Mr Garson, and passed for several miles over a somewhat 

 dreary country, bare, sterile, and brown, studded by cold, 

 broad, treeless lakes, and thinly mottled by groupes of gray, 

 diminutive cottages, that do not look as if there was much 

 of either plenty or comfort inside. But after surmounting 

 the hills that form the northern side of the interior basin, I 

 was sensible of a sudden improvement on the face of the coun- 

 try. Where the land slopes towards the sea, the shaggy heath 



