The English language prevails in all these islands; but they being a long time subject to the Kings of Norway, it is spoken with the accent of that country, and is mixed with a great many Norwegian words, especially in Foula. Neither here nor in the Orkneys is the Gaelic language known.
English as well as Danish money is current here; but neither species is superabundant.
According to the latest account, this group of islands contains 22,379 inhabitants, among whom are about twenty considerable proprietors, and a great many small ones. The whole land-rent amounts to about £5000 per annum, which is a small sum when compared with the profits the proprietors make by the fisheries, in which they are all concerned. This business is carried on by the tenants: an affair which tends much to affect the state of the common people at large. The landlords, as before mentioned, make their lands subservient to this trade, by setting them in small portions to fishermen; and, in order the more to propagate the human species for the purpose of fishing, the young men get premiums of small subdivisions of land, (though without lease,) on their taking wives. The poor, who thus swallow the matrimonial bait, getting more numerous families than they can maintain, and having no way of supporting themselves but by the fish which they take; (and which they are obliged to sell to their landlords at a fixed price,) are often necessitated, either to go on board such merchant vessels as call in here, or to enter voluntarily into his Majesty’s navy. In many places, three or four families are found on a farm which, thirty or forty years ago, was possessed only by one.
Unmarried men have another inducement to enter into matrimony; for when government requires a number of men for the Navy, the proprietors take good care to send off those who are unmarried. By these factitious regulations, the population has become superabundant, insomuch that the produce of the islands does not support their inhabitants more than seven or eight months in the year. Before the proprietors of land became so deeply engaged in the fishing business, juvenile or premature marriages were, in these islands, looked on as next to a crime, because thereby the population might increase to such a degree as to become ruinous and oppressive to the whole community. For this reason, a regulation was made against marriage, unless when the parties could produce evidence that they possessed L.40 Scots, or L.3, 6s. 8d. Sterling. This salutary law is now never enforced, to the great prejudice of the whole inhabitants. It is curious to observe how the principles of Mr. Malthus accommodate themselves to, and receive illustration from, the smallest societies.
The secluded inhabitants of these solitary isles are very unhealthy, and seem to complain of one general disorder, which is of a phthisical and scrophulous nature, the cause of which evidently seems to be this: the men are exposed to intense cold at the fishing, where they remain twenty-four, thirty, and sometimes forty-eight hours in open boats; get their feet wet: and when they come home have but very sorry cheer to accommodate themselves with; nor is their daily employment sufficiently laborious to prove a healthful exercise. Hence proceed colds, coughs, phthisis pulmonalis, and every thing which renders the frame a complete nest of complicated disorders. The women above the common rank, lead a very sedentary life, and seldom appear out of doors, unless at church, which, probably on account of its great distance from them, they do not often visit. Besides, tea has found its way into these dreary regions, a constant use of which is the well-known enemy of those who lead sedentary lives, and do not take exercise sufficient to promote the necessary secretions. Hence come on relaxation of the solids, indigestion, flatulency, glandular obstructions, hysterics, &c.
None of the female sex here appeared so healthy and blooming as those employed in cultivating the ground.
During our stay here in both 1806 and 1807, I was asked to visit different sick patients, and found a private infirmary almost in every house. To some of those I hope I gave useful medicines; to others I gave only some simples to satisfy them, as I found they were fast hastening to that “bourn whence no traveller returns.”
Medical advice and drugs are at a very exorbitant price here; and such cordials as wine, &c. cannot be procured for love or money. As the Captain was so charitable as to allow me to give medicines gratis to such as were really objects of compassion, I took nothing for my trouble in preparing them, or visiting the sick; knowing, that if God should be pleased to make me an instrument in relieving the distressed, I would be more than amply repaid.
April 3. Having got eight men at Balti Sound, we weighed anchor at ten A. M. and sailed out of the north entrance with a fine south-west breeze.
For some days we had fine clear frosty weather, during which time no particular occurrence took place.