148 ORKNEY AND SHETLAND ISLES. 



political ad- of wealth; — has been often described ; but still it is in a 



vantages of the jfj-eat measure neglected; at least we certainly do not 

 herring fisher- j , ~ . , " , , . , . 



ry of Scotland. "^"^'^ *''°™ " those vast .adv.antages which it is calculated 

 to afford, and which it did, for a very long series of years, 

 afford to the States of Jlolland. At a moment when we are 

 listening to the eloquent and plausible, but I fear seductive 

 and dangerous aroumonts of the Earl of Selkirk in favour 

 of emigration, I cannot omit this opportunity of very briefly 

 calling into view the extent and the value of this fishery, 

 which, if duly prosecuted, would afford clieerful and pro- 

 fitable employment at home, to any number of those de- 

 luded men who are every year abandoning their native 

 country, in quest of imaginary happiness and riches in the 

 woods and fens of xlincrica; — and I ])resunie it will at 

 once be co-accdcd, that ten or twenty thousand Scotsmen 

 engaged in the Shetland herring-fishery, would, in this 

 eventful period, be a much more agreeable object of con- 

 templation to the mother country, than the finest imaginable 

 seLtlement in Prince Edward's Island, or on the banks of 

 the St. Lawrence. 

 Immensity of It is scarcely possible to form an idea of the immensity 

 ihc shoals, ©f the grand northern shoal of herrings which approaches 

 the Shetland Islands every month of June. " The flocks 

 of sea-birds, for their number," it has been observed, 

 *• baffle the power of figures :" 



Where the Northern Ocean in vast whirls 



Boils round the naked melancholy isles 



Of farthest Thuie;— 



Who can recount what transmigrations there 



Are annual made ? what nations come and go .' 



And how the living clouds on clouds arise ? 



Infinite wings ! till all the plume-dark air 



And rude resounding shore, are one wild cry*. 



'• But the swarms of fishes, as if engendered in the clouds, 

 and showered down like the rain, are multiplied in an in- 

 compreliensible degree. Of all the various tribes of fishes, 

 the Herring is the most numerous. Closely embodied ir. 

 resplendent columns of many miles in length and breadth, 

 and in depth from the surface to the bottom of the sea, Um 



* Thomson. 



dhoals 



