rkably like the Norwegians of the Saettersdal.
In that part of Norway the trow is also a very popular terror. Children
of a disobedient and obstreperous turn are afraid to venture near a wood
at nightfall for fear of a little bogie with a red cap, who may suddenly
slide down a pine-tree and snatch them off.

FOULAH AND FAIR ISLE.

I do not altogether envy the candidate for parliamentary honours who has
to _nurse_ a remote insular constituency like Orkney and Shetland. I met
Mr. Cathcart Wason in Lerwick, and learned that he had been going the
round of the islands and had even paid a visit to the isolated and
mountainous rock of Foulah. Now this was a very daring feat indeed, for
I have heard of a young man who went once to visit his friends there and
was kept a prisoner for five months owing to the squalls. The papers
complimented Mr. Wason on his intrepidity: he went over from Walls in a
smack, and did not make his address too lengthy, for fear the weather
might change and Westminster be deprived of his eloquence for a space.
Mr. Wason is a very tall gentleman, but in Foulah he met his peers in
point of stature. The islanders are a fine set of men, hardy and godly.
They are adroit fowlers and nimble cragsmen. It gives one a queer
sensation to hear that the face of their sheer precipices used to be
(like level land elsewhere) apportioned equitably among the various
families. If A did not wish to catch birds on his aerial lot, he could
let it to B and claim a certain percentage of the spoil. The population
of the island is about 250: owing probably to intermarriage, there are
many childless homes.

I do not know if Mr. Wason has ever been to the Fair Isle, but I
understand an Ex-Moderator of the Church of Scotland visited the little
community there in 1903. There are two ways of getting to this islet:
(1) by means of a sailing boat which leaves Grutness for Fair Isle once
a fortnight with the mails; if the weather is bad, this mode of
communication is suspended, as in winter no sane man would venture
through the roost in such a boat; (2) by taking a passage on board the
S.S. _Pole Star_, which calls on the first of every month with stores
for the lighthouse. She is a strong, swift boat, and makes the journey
from Stromness, seventy miles away. I may remark that a lecturer wishing
to speak in the Fair Isle need not trouble himself about placards or
handbills: the whole population will be on the shore to welcome him wh