At mid-day came in sight of the Faröe Islands rising above the horizon; fixed the first glimpse of them, and continued sketching their outline from time to time, as on nearing them it developed itself—watching with great interest the seeming clouds slowly becoming crags. Little Dimon, a lofty rock-island, somewhat resembling Ailsa, and purple in the distance, was, from the first, the most prominent and singular object on the horizon line.
The waves rolling so heavily that not only the hull, but the mast of a sloop, not very far off, is quite hid by each long swell. The Professor, Dr. Livingston, and Mr. Murray all agree in saying that they never had such heavy seas in crossing the Atlantic.
The Faröe group consists of twenty-two islands, seventeen of which are inhabited. A bird’s-eye view of them would exhibit a series of bare, steep, oblong hills, in parallel ranges; with either valleys or narrow arms of the sea between them, and all lying north-west and south-east. The name Faröe is said to be derived from faar or foer, the old word for a sheep; that animal having probably been introduced by the Norse sea-rovers long before these islands were permanently colonised in the time of Harold. However, fier—the Danish word for feathers—is more likely to be the correct etymology; for these islands are the native habitat of innumerable sea-birds.
They lie 185 miles north-west of the Shetland Isles, 400 west of Norway, and 320 south-east of Iceland; population upwards of 3000, and subject to Denmark.
We are now approaching Suderoe, the most southerly of the islands. On our left lie several curious detached rocks, near one of which, called the Monk, is a whirlpool, dangerous in some states of the tide; although its perils, like those of Corrivreckan between Jura and Scarba in the Hebrides, have been greatly exaggerated. On one occasion I sailed over the latter unharmed by Sirens, Mermaids, or Kelpies; only observing an irregular fresh on the water, where the tide-ways met, and hearing nothing save a dripping, plashing noise in the cross-cut ripple, as if many fish were leaping around the boat.
In storms, however, such places had better receive a wide berth.
The approach to the Faröe group is very fine, presenting to our view a magnificent panorama of fantastically-shaped islands—peaked sharp angular bare precipitous rocks, rising sheer from the sea; the larger-sized islands being regularly terraced in two or more successive grades of columnar trap-rock. Some of these singular hill-islets are sharp along the top, like the ridge of a house, and slope down on either side to the sea, at an angle of fifty degrees. Others of them are isolated stacks.
The hard trap-rock, nearly everywhere alternating with soft tufa, or claystone, sufficiently accounts for the regular, stair-like terraces which form a striking and characteristic feature of these picturesque islands. The whole have evidently, in remote epochs, been subjected to violent physical abrasion, probably glacial, during the period of the ice-drift; and, subsequently, to the disintegrating crumbling influences of moisture, and of the atmosphere itself. Frost converts each particle of moisture into a crystal expanding wedge of ice, which does its work silently but surely and to an extent which few people would imagine.
We now pass that singular rock-island, Little Dimon, which supports a few wild sheep; and Store Dimon, on which only one family resides. The cliffs here, as also on others of the islands, are so steep that boats are lowered with ropes into the sea; and people landing are either pulled up by ropes, or are obliged to clamber up by fixing their toes and fingers in holes cut on the face of the rock. Sea-fowls and eggs are every year collected in thousands from these islets by the bold cragsmen. These men climb from below; or, like the samphire-gatherer—“dreadful trade”—are let down to the nests by means of a rope, and there they pursue their perilous calling while hanging in “midway air” over the sea. They also sometimes approach the cliffs at night, in boats, carrying lighted torches, which lure and dazzle the birds that come flying around them, so that they are easily knocked down with sticks, and the boat is thus speedily filled. As many as five thousand birds have been taken in one year from Store Dimon alone, and in former times they were much more numerous.
We watch clouds like white fleecy wool rolling past, and apparently being raked by the violet-coloured peaks; whilst others lower down are pierced and rest peacefully among them.