r met with one who
could."

In returning from Lerwick to the Orkneys, we had a sample of the weather
which is often encountered in these latitudes. The wind blew a gale in the
night, and our steamer was tossed about on the waves like an egg-shell,
much to the discomfort of the passengers. We had on board a cargo of
ponies, the smallest of which were from the Shetlands, some of them not
much larger than sheep, and nearly as shaggy; the others, of larger size,
had been brought from the Faro Isles. In the morning, when the gale had
blown itself to rest, I went on deck and saw one of the Faro Island
ponies, which had given out during the night, stretched dead upon the
deck. I inquired if the body was to be committed to the deep. "It is to be
skinned first," was the answer.

We stopped at Kirkwall in the Orkneys, long enough to allow us to look at
the old cathedral of St. Magnus, built early in the twelfth century--a
venerable pile, in perfect preservation, and the finest specimen of the
architecture once called Saxon, then Norman, and lately Romanesque, that I
have ever seen. The round arch is everywhere used, except in two or three
windows of later addition. The nave is narrow, and the central groined
arches are lofty; so that an idea of vast extent is given, though the
cathedral is small, compared with the great minsters in England. The work
of completing certain parts of the building which were left unfinished, is
now going on at the expense of the government. All the old flooring, and
the pews, which made it a parish church, have been taken away, and the
original proportions and symmetry of the building are seen as they ought
to be. The general effect of the building is wonderfully grand and solemn.

On our return to Scotland, we stopped for a few hours at Wick. It was late
in the afternoon, and the fishermen, in their vessels, were going out of
the harbor to their nightly toil. Vessel after vessel, each manned with
four stout rowers, came out of the port--and after rowing a short
distance, raised their sails and steered for the open sea, till all the
waters, from the land to the horizon, were full of them. I counted them,
hundreds after hundreds, till I grew tired of the task. A sail of ten or
twelve hours brought us to Aberdeen, with its old cathedral, encumbered
by pews and wooden partitions, and its old college, the tower of which is
surmounted by a cluster of flying buttresses, formed into the resemblance
of a cr