DOMESTICATION OF SEALS. 31 



men, she would of her own accord mount her palanquin, 

 and thus be carried as composedly as any Hindoo princess. 

 By degrees we ventured to let her go fairly into the sea, 

 and she regularly returned after a short interval ; but one 

 day during a thick fall of snow she was imprudently let off 

 as usual, and, being decoyed some distance out of sight of the 

 shore by some wild ones which happened to be in the bay 

 at the time, she either could not find her way back or vo- 

 luntarily decamped. She was, we understood, killed very 

 shortly after in a neighbouring inlet. We had kept her 

 about six months, and every moment she was becoming 

 more familiar ; we had dubbed her Finna, and she seemed 

 to know her name. Every one that saw her was struck 

 with her appearance. The smooth face without external ears 

 — the nose slightly aquiline — the large, dark, and beautiful 

 eye which stood the sternest gaze of the human, gave to the 

 expression of her countenance such dignity and variety that 

 we all agreed that it really was super-animal. The Scan- 

 dinavian Scald with such a mermaid before him, would find 

 in her eye a metaphor so emphatic that he would have no 

 reason to borrow the favourite oriental image of the gazelles 

 from his Caucasian ancestors. This remarkable expressive- 

 ness and dignity of aspect of the Hqff-Jish, so superior to all 

 other animals with which the fishermen of Shetland were 

 acquainted, and the human character of his voice, may have 

 procured for him that peculiar respect with which he was 

 regarded by those who lived nearest his domains, and were 

 admitted to most frequent intercourse with him. He was 

 the favourite animal of superstition, and a few tales of him 

 are still current ;-* these, however, are not of much interest 



* The abolition of the Norse, the ancient language of these islands, 

 has been fatal to their antiquarian and poetical lore, depending on tra- 

 dition. 



