TO ORKNEY AND SHETLAND. 13 



room with the inhabitants, and the chickens occa- 

 sionally enter and perch on the shelves, and on the 

 tops of the beds, if they are so fortunate as to 

 possess any furniture of the latter description. 



The dress of the Shetland peasantry is not pe- 

 culiar 5 both sexes wear the coarse manufactured 

 stuffs of their country : the men make a kind of 

 shoe of the untanned skins of the ox and seal, 

 which are called rivilins; they are very light, and 

 are well adapted for travelling; they are worn 

 with the hair outwards. Their food consists of 

 coarse oat and barley cakes, fish, milk, and pota- 

 toes ; occasionally a small piece of mutton or 

 pork, the latter of which, by the by, is very in- 

 ferior, as the pigs are generally fed upon fish. 

 Their chief drink is a liquor called bland, or the 

 fluid that remains after the butter has been re- 

 moved from the churn ; it is much used by all 

 classes in the summer time. Travelling in Shet- 

 land is very disagreeable and inconvenient; the 

 chief conveyance is by water in open boats, or by 

 their native ponies ; it is also requisite to have a 

 guide to accompany you, as there are no roads. I 

 should have given a table of their charges for 

 the benefit of those who may travel there, but 

 I find it difficult to make a fixed statement, it 

 varies so much, according to the state of the 



