shall enter on my tour to Orkney. It dates one year earlier (1846)
than the tour with which I have already occupied so many chapters; but I
have thus inverted the order of _time_, by placing it last, that I may
be able so to preserve the order of _space_ as to render the tract
travelled over in my narrative continuous from Edinburgh to the northern
extremity of Pomona.

CHAPTER X.

Recovered Health--Journey to the Orkneys--Aboard the Steamer at
Wick--Mr. Bremner--Masonry of the Harbor of Wick--The greatest
Blunders result from good Rules misapplied--Mr. Bremner's Theory
about sea-washed Masonry--Singular Fracture of the Rock near
Wick--The Author's mode of accounting for it--"Simple but not
obvious" Thinking--Mr. Bremner's mode of making stone Erections
under Water--His exploits in raising foundered Vessels--Aspect of
the Orkneys--- The ungracious Schoolmaster--In the Frith of
Kirkwall--Cathedral of St. Magnus--Appearance of Kirkwall--Its
"perished suppers"--Its ancient Palaces--Blunder of the Scotch
Aristocracy--The patronate Wedge--Breaking Ground in Orkney--Minute
gregarious Coccosteus--True Position of the Coccosteus' Eyes--Ruins
of one of Cromwell's Forts--Antiquities of Orkney--The
Cathedral--Its Sculptures--The Mysterious Cell--Prospect from the
Tower--Its Chimes--Ruins of Castle Patrick.

A twelvemonth had gone by since a lingering indisposition, which bore
heavily on the springs of life, compelled me to postpone a
long-projected journey to the Orkneys, and led me to visit, instead,
rich level England, with its well-kept roads and smooth railways, along
which the enfeebled invalid can travel far without fatigue. I had now
got greatly stronger; and, if not quite up to my old thirty miles per
day, nor altogether so bold a cragsman as I had been only a few years
before, I was at least vigorous enough to enjoy a middling long walk,
and to breast a tolerably steep hill. And so I resolved on at least
glancing over, if not exploring, the fossiliferous deposits of the
Orkneys, trusting that an eye somewhat practised in the formations
mainly developed in these islands might enable me to make some amends
for seeing comparatively little, by seeing well. I took coach at
Invergordon for Wick early in the morning of Friday; and, after a weary
ride, in a bleak gusty day, that sent the dust of the road whirling
about the ears of the sorely-tos