THE ORKNEYS AND SHETLANDS 



223 



upon because of the conflicting appoint- 

 ment of one Gilbert Balfour, Lord Robert 

 was compensated by being created Abbot 

 of Holyrood. He then traded his holy 

 office for the Bishopric of Orkney, about 

 as two boys would swap jack-knives, and 

 when Balfour came to grief because of 

 his loyalty to Queen Mary, Lord Robert 

 took possession of the two groups of 

 islands, church revenues, crown lands, 

 and all. 



He proceeded to live upon the inhab- 

 itants, levying taxes, exacting service, ap- 

 propriating lands under all kinds of pre- 

 texts, imprisoning, banishing, or execut- 

 ing those who were inconveniently in his 

 way and otherwise twisting to suit his 

 own whim the laws of property which 

 had been recognized for centuries. This 

 continued for twenty-three years, until 

 his death, when his son Patrick not only 

 adopted his father's methods, but in- 

 vented other and more ingenious schemes 

 of fraud and crime, which he was per- 

 mitted to employ for seventeen years. 



The splendid Earl's Palace in Kirkwall 

 was built by forced labor. The people 

 quarried the stone, transported it, and 

 constructed the building, not by contract, 

 but by compulsion. It was very much the 

 same way with the Palace of Scalloway, 

 which still has a ring at the top to which 

 Black Pate hanged those who objected to 

 following his commands, and the palace 

 at Birsay, which his father built by the 

 same method. 



kirkwall, bask of thk american 

 navy's mink-sweeping squadron 



Kirkwall, the largest town of the Ork- 

 neys, the base of the American Navy's 

 mine-sweeping squadron, which operated 

 in the North Sea in 1919, is a quaint 

 place, and in ordinary times is quiet 

 enough. A very narrow lane, called 

 Bridge Street, leads back from the steam- 

 ship landing. It is paved with flagstones, 

 and when a team passes the pedestrians 

 have to stand close to the walls or enter 

 the doorways. 



At the head of this curious thorough- 

 fare is Albert Street, which has the 

 unique distinction of possessing a single 

 tree. Further on, the street widens into 

 a broad plaza opposite the Cathedral. 



Stromness, the second town in im- 

 portance, lies on the opposite side of the 

 island and is distinctly more picturesque. 

 It stands on the slope of a hill, overlook- 

 ing a beautiful harbor, and its single 

 street twists and turns through it for 

 about a mile. Our motor car occupied 

 its whole width, but, as there was no 

 other car on the island, this did not 

 greatly concern us. 



STROMNESS, HOMK OF JOHN GOW, THE 

 FAMOUS PIRATK 



Stromness was the home of John Gow, 

 the famous pirate, whose career sug- 

 gested to Sir Walter Scott the character 

 of Cleveland, in "The Pirate." Here 

 also lived Bessie Millie, an old hag who 

 sold ''favoring winds" to the mariners 

 and from whom Scott developed the idea 

 of Noma of the Fitful Head. 



From the hill back of Stromness we 

 had a fine view of the island of Hoy, the 

 highest land in the Orkneys. On one 

 side of the hill is the celebrated Dwarfie 

 Stone, another of those mysterious relics, 

 though by no means so old as the stones 

 of Stenness. It is a wedgelike stone, 

 about 30 feet long and 15 feet wide, in 

 which is an opening 3 feet square and 7 

 feet deep. 



At the inner end the opening widens 

 so as to make two short beds, cut out of 

 the solid rock. It is commonly believed 

 to have been the abode of a goblin of evil 

 repute. 



In this rambling of the Shetlands and 

 Orkneys, intended to point out some of 

 the curious objects of interest which have 

 thrown a glamor of mystery over the 

 islands, we have left unmentioned the 

 largest and most commercial city of the 

 archipelago, because its importance is en- 

 tirely modern and its place in history so 

 small as to be scarcely worth mentioning. 

 This is Lerwick, the capital of Shetland. 

 It is far more picturesque, as well as more 

 imposing, than its southern rival, Kirk- 

 wall. 



Until the arrival of the British fleet 

 during the World War, the harbor of 

 Kirkwall was almost deserted. But Ler- 

 wick is the center of a vast fishing in- 

 dustry, and from Saturday to Monday, 

 in the season, its harbor is crowded with 



