ised town for the strangers on the
outskirts, over which float many odours, weird, pungent, and unsavoury.
All the processes of gutting, curing, and kippering go on in grand
style. The women, clad in a kind of oilskin, handle their dangerous
implements in most dexterous fashion. It is a horrid business, but well
paid. Prolific Nature is never tired supplying these women with work,
for as many as 68,000 eggs have been found in the roe of one female
herring. My friend, Mr. M'Kenzie of Ullapool, who is in the service of
the Fishery Board, took me to see the official examination of several
hundred barrels of fish, preparatory to the branding thereon of the
official stamp. The owners pay for this examination, but the additional
value given to each barrel by the Government mark far surpasses the fee
exacted by the Board. The branding-officer selects at random a barrel
here and there, extracts some dozen fish from each, and satisfies
himself as to the size and quality. If the herring are puny or of
inferior sort, the officer refuses to brand, and the examination fee is
refunded. Mr. M'Kenzie remarked that this was the only case in which he
had ever seen men reluctant to receive money. I followed that gentleman
as he walked over the long lines of slippery herring barrels, lying in
horizontal juxtaposition, and I cannot recommend the exercise to those
who have had no training in gymnastics.

The great success of the Shetland fisheries during the last year or two
has brought to Lerwick a palpable increase of business and droves of
business men. In the Grand Hotel there were, in August last, thirty
gentlemen resident who were in some way brought thither by the traffic
in herring--among the number a young Russian, who, with his wife, sat at
a little table apart, and kept jabbering their language with glib
expressiveness. His name was Walk-off, and his object was the
annexation of fish for Muscovite consumption. He had a flabby face and
long, dark hair, which he publicly combed. _She_ was small and
pretty--doll-like, indeed--with jewels in her ears, which glittered and
flashed in the gas-light. She was a very loquacious wee creature, and
her intonation reminded me of the caressing way the Swedes articulate
English. I heard him read the Russian newspapers to her with evident
emotion, but the only word I could make out was _Kouropatkin_. The
herring-agents at the hotel table were full of drollery. One of them,
hailing from Wick, addre