6 STEAMEE OrT IN HER EECKONING. 



Roads, but a violent gale of east wind pre- 

 vented ns from sailing for several days ; how- 

 ever, we got under way at daylight on the 6th 

 of June, but the day being calm we were only 

 off the village of Elie, at the mouth of the 

 Pirth of Porth, at seven in the evening, so I 

 landed to pay a visit to some relations living 

 there whom I had not seen for several years, 

 and to procure some small stores which the 

 steward had forgotten, and which he declared 

 were " indispensable." 



On the 8th, during a dense fog, we were off 

 Aberdeen by our dead-reckoning, and were 

 nearly run down by a tiig steamer, from the 

 deck of which a voice hailed in a strong North- 

 umbrian dialect, requesting to know " how 

 far they might be from Shields ? " I never 

 saw any people look more surprised than they 

 did on being told " about 240 miles," as they 

 had lost their way in the fog for two or three 

 days, and imagined themselves to be still only 

 a few miles from the mouth of the Tyne. 



We beat through the middle of the Orkney 

 Islands on the 9th, and on the 11th, finding 

 the wind still desperately ahead with a heavy 

 sea, we thought it would entail no great loss 

 of time to put into Lerwick, to replenish om* 



