LERWICK, SHETLAND
Lerwick, the capital of the Shetland Islands, is a town of picturesque appearance. When it was built there were no carts in the islands, and no occasion for any, for there were no roads. A long zigzag street runs the length of the town, near the shore, and is the main business thoroughfare. A century ago it would have been impossible to drive an ordinary wagon through its narrow and awkward turnings. Now the buildings are sufficiently altered to admit the passage of teams, but in many places, when a vehicle passes, the pedestrians must step into the nearest doorways. The town is built on a hillside, so that the cross-streets are steep lanes, alternating with short flights of stairs. They have rough pavements, and usually a rail is placed along the buildings for the safety of the pedestrians in icy weather. The main thoroughfare, varying in width from ten to twenty-five feet, is paved with flagging and its stone buildings, though small and of many different shapes, have a substantial look. Strolling through the streets of Lerwick, one might estimate the population at about five thousand; looking out over the harbour on Sunday morning he would be inclined to change the figure to twenty times that number; but again looking seaward on Monday afternoon, when the fishing fleet has disappeared, he would doubtless revert to his original estimate.
The men of the islands are nearly all fishermen. They work hard in the season, which lasts from June to September, and spend their money, during the long dark days of winter, in various amusements. Some maintain small farms of five or ten acres each, known as crofts, where they raise a few cattle and sheep. Only about one sixth of the land is under cultivation, and of this about three fourths is pasture land. The soil and climate of the Shetlands is decidedly unfavourable to agriculture. The women look after the cattle, till the soil in their small kail-yards, or gardens, bring in the winter supply of peat, and attend to all the duties of housekeeping. In the intervals of their busy lives, they knit shawls and other garments, out of wool which they card and spin themselves. Indeed, they knit nearly all the time. It is not uncommon to see them walking along the roads or across the moors, with heavy baskets of peat on their backs, the knitting-needles clicking busily, as if every woman had been born with these implements in her hands.
On the morning after our arrival we set out to discover the scenes of 'The Pirate.' Not knowing what changes had occurred since Scott's visit to the islands in 1814, I was not sure whether I should be obliged to catch a Shetland pony upon which to travel or make up my mind to walk the twenty-seven miles between Lerwick and Sumburgh Head, over a roadless country of rocks and mountains, morasses, and quagmires. It was a delight, therefore, to learn not only that there was a good road all the way, but that Lerwick now boasted the possession of an automobile, the only one on the islands. I lost no time in hiring the car, with a chauffeur who said he 'knew the road,' though he afterwards confessed he had never been over it. When he reached the mountainous regions, where the road dodges in and out around a bewildering succession of short curves, along the edges of cliffs from which we could look down upon rugged rocks or into the lakes and voes a hundred feet below, speeding the machine as though he were on level ground and familiar with every foot of it, he gave us a thrill or two at every turn.
A CROFTER'S COTTAGE, ORKNEY
We started out in the general direction taken by Mordaunt Mertoun, when he left the comfortable home of Magnus Troil and his two pretty daughters, Minna and Brenda, to return to the forlorn habitation of his father at Jarlshof. There was just enough strong wind, with occasional dashes of rain, to suggest the storm which Mordaunt faced. But he had to find his way around the edges of the numerous inland lakes and voes by a kind of instinct, having no path to follow. We travelled, on the contrary, over a good hard road, one of the improvements of the last half-century. Most of the people whom we passed had never seen an automobile. They not only hastily gave us the road, but usually climbed high up on the adjacent banks, sometimes dragging their pony-carts after them. One old man, when he saw us coming, hastily took his horse out of the shafts, and rushed up the side of the hill with the animal, to a safe distance of a hundred yards before he dared look back. The horse gazed upon us in mild-eyed curiosity, but the man's expression of terror suggested that he might have seen old Norna of the Fitful Head herself and her leering, sneering, grinning, and goggling dwarf, Nick Strumpfer, flying along in a vehicle of the Devil's own invention. Though not particularly grateful for the implied compliment, we were obliged to accept some such explanation of the fact, which became more and more apparent, that the men and women feared us far more than did their horses.
At one point we stopped to watch some women gathering peat. Only the wealthy can afford to import coal and there is no wood on the islands, because the fierce winds and rocky soil prevent the growth of trees. The universal fuel for the poor is therefore peat, which seems to have been providentially provided. For a fee of half-a-crown a year, or in some cases a little more, paid to some large landowner, each family may take a winter's supply. Every crofter's cottage has its peat-stack near the door. Peat is simply decayed moss, the most common variety of which is called Sphagnum. It is a small plant with thin, scaly leaves. In the light it has a hue of vivid green, changing in the lower and darker places to a sickly yellow, and finally in the lowest and dampest places, where it is thoroughly decayed, to a deep black. This decayed portion is the peat, which, when well dried, burns with a smouldering fire, of greater heat than an equal weight of wood, but with far greater volume of smoke. The peat-banks resemble miniature terraces, each about a foot high. The cutting is done with a curious spade, with long narrow blade, called a twiscar or tuskar. The top layer, consisting of coarse dry grasses and the roots of heather and other plants, is of no value. The second layer is a thick, moist, spongy substance of a dark brown or black colour, while the third is still more compressed, and, but for the moisture, looks somewhat like coal. Each spadeful resembles a big, blackened brick, of unusual length. They are laid in rows to dry and finally carried away to the crofter's cottages, generally in baskets. The women swing their heavy loads upon their backs and trudge long distances. Occasionally the peat is loaded upon small sledges drawn by ponies. We saw an old woman, with a very pretty granddaughter, loading their fuel upon one of these sledges, which was drawn by a little 'Sheltie' with furry coat of pure white. The old woman kindly allowed me to take her picture, a favour which two other women declined to grant, because they did n't have on their best clothes!