As in Shetland, the wool is collected from the sheep by the hand, at the season of the year when they are casting their fleeces; for shearing, besides being a more painful process, would deprive them of the long hair so necessary for their protection in an uncertain climate, and leave them to shiver exposed to the untempered fury of the northern blast. The sheep thus enables the islanders to supply their own home wants, and also annually to export many thousand pairs of knitted stockings and gloves, together with the overplus raw material.
Miss L. informs us that Thorshavn contains about eight hundred inhabitants. Of these, most of the men are fishers when the weather will admit of their going off. The people are very ingenious, and make knives of all sizes, with curiously inlaid wooden handles and sheaths. The wood for such purposes is obtained from logs of mahogany, which are frequently found as drift-wood among these islands. We were shewn a home-made fancy work-table, neatly put together in a very ingenious and workman-like manner.
Each man here is a sort of Jack-of-all-trades, from the mending of boats or nets, to the killing of sheep and drying them in sheds for the winter store of provisions; from the making of lamb-skin shoes to the building of houses, or the manufacture of implements.
Miss Löbner has kindly and obligingly undertaken to procure some specimens of these manufactures and local curiosities against my return from Iceland.
Gazing round, as we take leave of our kind entertainers, I fix in my mind’s eye the lady-like air and quaint point-devise costume of the elder lady, who, with silvery hair combed back from her brow, had moved about most assiduously performing all the sacred rites of hospitality to her guests; the mediæval aspect of everything in the room,—from the stove to the timepiece, from the polished wooden floor to the panelled ceiling; the diamond-paned lattice windows, with their old-world outlook on the town and the flat wooden bridge, close by, which crosses a brawling stream rushing impetuously over rocks from the gully behind; the absolute cleanness and polish of everything; and the monthly roses blooming freshly as of old;—all so vividly impress themselves upon my mind that the whole becomes a waking dream of other days; and it would not seem much out of keeping, or at all surprising, were the Emperor Charles V. himself to open the door and walk into the quaint old apartment we are now about to leave.
FROM THORSHAVN—SHOWING FARÖESE BOATS.
Nine P.M.—Wandered alone by the shore, and sketched the view, looking north, from beneath the fort; also made a drawing of the bay from the wooden jetty; while engaged on the latter, crowds of fishermen gathered around me making odd remarks of wonder, the general scope of which I could gather, as they recognised the steamer, boats, hills, &c., coming up on the paper; sketched one of the onlookers, an intelligent looking fellow, and here he is.
FARÖESE BOATMAN.