A Thames fishing smack, and a sloop from Lerwick, are lying in the bay. Piping and dancing goes merrily on, on board the latter, relieved by intervals of music alone. In one of these, we heard “The Yellow Hair’d Laddie,” rendered with considerable taste, although, doubtless, several “improvements and additions” were made on the original score.
We took some Faröese boatmen into the saloon of the steamer, and I shall not soon forget the look of wonder and utter astonishment pourtrayed on their countenances, as they gazed on the mirrors and everything around, or were shown things with which they were not familiar and heard their uses explained. They were greatly pleased with my life-belt. Dr. Mackinlay showed them a multiplying-glass, and, as it was handed from one to another—each man first making the discovery of what had so inexplicably excited the wonder of the last looker—the queer exclamations of amazement accompanied by inimitable pantomimic gestures reached their culminating point, and were irresistibly droll.
NAALSÖE—FARÖE.
The weather is all we could desire. The sailors are singing some curious Danish songs, with the time well marked, as they heave the anchor; and at 20 minutes past 6 o’clock P.M. we are steaming out of the bay. The evening is lovely, and the Thermometer, on the deck, stands at 68°. Thorshavn soon disappears, and we leave the Faröe islands astern, relieved against an amber sky, Dimon being the most striking and conspicuous of the group. A few stars shone overhead, and I walked the deck till midnight.
ENTRANCE TO THE SOUND LEADING TO THORSHAVN.
Tuesday, August 9. At breakfast, tasted a whale-steak which Miss Löbner had yesterday sent on board for me, with particular instructions to the stewardess to have it properly cooked. The flesh looked and tasted like dry tough beef, with a slight flavour of venison. The blubber, however was too strong for any of us to do more than merely satisfy—not gratify—our curiosity.
The day was lovely. Professor Chadbourne invited me to visit and spend a month with him during his holiday. Indeed, cordial, pressing invitations, all round, were the order of the day. As fellow-travellers we had been happy together, and felt sorry at the near prospect of our little party being broken up and scattered; for several valued friendships had been formed.
Between three and four o’clock in the afternoon, the thermometer indicated 98° in the sun and 75° in the shade. Dr. Mackinlay showed me an old Danish dollar he had got, in change, at Reykjavik; it bore the date of A.D. 1619, the year of the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers from the May Flower. Part of the day was spent in writing out these pages from my diary. In the evening we saw, far to our left, faint and dim on the horizon line, the north-west islands of Shetland; and by a quarter to 8 o’clock P.M. were sailing twenty miles to the west of Fair Isle, which lies between Orkney and Shetland. Both groups are in sight. We have not seen a sail since we left Faröe, and now, what we at first fancied to be one, off the north end of the Orkneys, turns out to be a light-house, rising apparently from the sea, but in reality from low lying land which is yet below the horizon.