124 T^HE HOME OF A NATURALIST. 



no regular mail service until 1836, "when a weekly 

 steamer was put on for the summer months between 

 Leith and Lerwick, calling at Aberdeen, Wick, and 

 Kirkwall ; and a packet schooner, between Aberdeen 

 and Lerwick direct, during the rest of the year ; but 

 six weeks would sometimes elapse between the passages 

 made by the latter. 



It will be guessed that, thus circumstanced, we were 

 thrown very much upon our own resources for necessary 

 supplies of food and clothing. On the approach of winter, 

 that is about the beginning of November, a bullock, 

 a pig, and half-a-dozen or more of the small semi- wild 

 native sheep, were slaughtered and cured. Everything 

 was utilised. Tripe was carefully salted ; black 

 puddings, white puddings, and sausage puddings were 

 made, together with some other combinations of meat 

 and suet unknown, I believe, except in those islands ; 

 and the tallow was converted into candles. Ample 

 stores of groceries of all sorts, meal and the like, were 

 laid in from Leith ; and thus preparations were made 

 for the dark and dead half of the year. 



Then as to amusements : there were, I need hardly 

 say, nothing of the nature of theatricals, no circuses or 

 strolling menageries — in fact, no shows of any kind. 

 Neither were there any fairs or wappinschaws. " High- 

 land games " were unknown, and there never was such 

 a thing as a meeting of athletes to contend for prizes 

 and local fame ; neither were there ever any regattas 

 or boat-races; and the native youth were utterly 

 ignorant of cricket, shinty, quoits, golf, and even curling. 



