Scapa (Skálpeið) Brock, the highly interesting ruin discovered by Mr Petrie in 1870, was of course visited. At the Earl’s Castle, whose approach is choked with trees like that of Baalbek, I remarked that the kitchen and the banqueting-room had false and shouldered arches, which might have been borrowed from the Haurán. We pitied poor St Magnus the Martyr for the insult lately offered to him in the shape of a wretched court-house—a similar affront has been inflicted upon York Minster. The old cathedral, grand in its rude and ponderous Norman-Gothic, is made remarkable by the red sandstone mixed with whitey-grey calcaires: it shares with St Mungo the honour of being the finest remains of Catholicism in the north, and it is unduly neglected by strangers. The view from that eye-sore, the stunted spire, is charming. North-west stretches the Bay of Firth, famed for oysters, backed by the dark heights of Rousay (Hrólfsey); while north-east lies Shapinshay (Hjápandisey),[311] smiling with corn and white houses, with the dark hillocks of low-lying Edey in the distance. Amongst the smaller islets may be mentioned castled Damsey (Daminsey); the Holm of Quanterness; Thieves’ Holm (Thjófaholmr), where robbers, who were supposed not to swim, found a safe prison, and often, too, a long home; and the whale-back of Gairsey (Gáreksey), with the stronghold of that Sveinn (Sweyn), who lost his pirate life when attacking Dublin—the Vikings seem ever to have preferred these fragments of earth where the sea, their favourite element, was never far distant. Nearer and rising from the reniform “Mainland,” alias Pomona, by the Sagas called Hrossey or Horse Island, is Wideford (Hvitfjörð) Hill, backed by the Oyce or Peerie Sea. The ground-wave is dark with bloomless gorse, and ruddy with fading heath, whilst higher still
“Earth clad in russet scorns the lively green.”
It is a progressive country: middle-aged men have shot grouse in the mosses near Kirkwall where now the fields bear corn. The peasant’s father despaired of growing grass: the son ploughs the bog, builds dry walls with the larger stones that cumber the surface, cuts deep drains, and top-dresses with sand and lime. Hands, however, are wanting; the fisheries bring more money than agriculture; and the good landlord will not part with his slow old tenantry, because he cannot replace it.
ST. MAGNUS CATHEDRAL & EARL'S PALACE, KIRKWALL
Vol. I. Page 283.
Two monuments in the cathedral are peculiarly interesting, and partly relieve the desert and dismal appearance of all Catholic places of worship converted to a “purer creed.” The first is that of the Irving family, true Orcadians, who never changed their name since A.D. 1361, and one lies murdered in A.D. 1614. Mr Petrie, the discoverer, communicated with the great Washington of that ilk, who replied courteously, forwarding at the same time a presentation copy of his works. Mr Pliny Miles (Norðurfari) and others of his class are fond of claiming all distinguished names for their own country; for instance, Snorri Thorfinnsson, “the first Yankee[312] on record,” is the forefather of Finn Magnússon and Thorvaldsen, whilst Captain Ericsson is the descendant of Eric the Red. It would be easier far to trace all American celebrities directly to Europe, and many of them would not be sorry to see the process thus inverted.
The second tomb, much more interesting to me than those of King Hakon and Maid Margaret, is the cenotaph of Dr Baikie, R.N., designed and inscribed, I believe, by Sir Henry Dryden: certainly both design and inscription deserve scanty credit. Not a word about the original profession of poor “Hammie,” as he was called by a host of friends. And why should it be a cenotaph? Why bequeath the explorer’s bones to the ignoble “European’s grave,” S’a Leone? Worse still, the journals, once so interesting, have been allowed to lie in obscurity for want of an editor, and a decade in these days takes away almost all the value of an African traveller’s diary. Dr Baikie is supposed also to have left a valuable collection of Nigerian vocabularies—these, at least, might be forwarded to the Anthropological Institute. I can only express a hope that the bereaved family will bestir itself before the cold shade of oblivion obscures the memory of a heroic name.
After a long spell of cloudy, misty, and rainy weather, Thursday, the 12th September, broke fine, with a clear sun and a high rollicking wind which swept the rolling surface-water like a broom. In these islands, July, August, and September are frequently wet; in October the “peerie simmer”[313] of St Martin, the Indian summer of the United States, sets in and gladdens the eye of man before the glooms of winter round off the year. Mr Petrie proposed himself as guide to Wideford Hill, Ingishowe (Howe of Inga), Maes Howe, Stennis, Borgar (Brúargarðr), and Stromness—I need hardly tell the pleasure with which his kind offer was accepted. He has not only admirably described these and other antiquities (especially in his “Notice of the Brochs, or Large Round Towers of Orkney,” etc., read before the S.N.A., June 11, 1866): he has done far more important work by converting popular insouciance, and even ridicule, into a something of his own enthusiasm. Nor should I forget to say that in this great task he has been ably and efficiently supported by the landlord-class, amongst whom Colonel Balfour of Balfour Castle and Ternaby (Tjarnabær), the owner of Maes Howe, has especially distinguished himself. We shall now hope to have heard the last of such barbarism as breaking up the venerable “Odin’s Stone” into building material. These acts are like the state of Uriconium, a national disgrace; we only wish that Jarl Hakon had Mr M——’s leg in the “Cashidawis,” or “Warm Hose”—a fitting reward for those who justify the sneer—