[296] The Saturday Review (December 14, 1872) informs its readers that the Danish mail packet runs from Leith—which it does not.
[297] From most parts of the world, too, even from Hungary and Fiume, the casks are sent back to the United States, not broken up, but in bulk, because the heavy freight pays well where labour cannot be bought.
[298] I need hardly remark that this was written before the glorious days of February 1874, when the English nation, centuries ahead of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, by one of the noblest constitutional revolutions known to its history, buried that felo-de-se, the Radical Cabinet, and pulled down its programme Disestablishment, Retrenchment, and Non-intervention, the latest modification of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, and—Death.
[299] We have seen that in Iceland the Lögberg, or Hill of Laws, was confined to the Althing.
[300] After many years of the “quousque tandem?” state of mind, my astonishment at the amount of legal murder authorised and sanctioned by authority in England, and my wonder that abuses so hideous did not become a public scandal, have been explained away by the sacrifices which the patriotic Mr Plimsoll found necessary before he could obtain a hearing. The manner in which his small inaccuracies of detail have been made to obscure the whole “palpitant question,” the counter-charges of sensationalism and ultra-philanthropy which have been brought to refute the main charge, and the notable worship of Mammon and vested abuses, are hardly encouraging to the optimist’s view of “progress.” But the day is now done, let us hope, when crews of “murdered men” can be sent to sea in floating coffins insured at thrice their value. The simplest preventive would be an order that every consul should report all flagrant cases, with the express understanding, however, that he should not be punished nor be made to suffer for doing his “unpleasant duty.”
[301] Found in St. Helier, and written “Helyer” in the Scoto-Scandinavian islands. Evidently the Icelandic Hellir (plur. Hellar), a cave, common in local words, e.g., Hellis-menn, the cave-men; it is akin to Hallr, a slope, a boulder, much used for proper names of men and women, as Hall-dór (Hall thor) and Hall-dóra (Cleasby).
[302] John Brand (A Brief Description of Orkney, etc., Edinburgh, 1701, Pinkerton, iii. 731) writes Dungisbie Head, and Duncan’s Bay. The Scandinavian form of Duncansbay Head is Dungalsnýpa.
[303] Pettlands Fjörð in Icelandic from Pight-land or Pict-land.
[304] For other interesting details see the Gróttasöngr, or Lay of Grótti.
[305] The old Cape Orcas, derived, as has been said, from Latin Orca, Gaelic Orcc or Orc, and Icelandic Orkn—“Delphinus orca,” a dog-seal—the addition of-ey, an isle, makes Orkney. This point is the Ptolemeian Tarbetum or “Taruedum, quod et Orcas promontorium, finis Scotiæ dicitur,” and unduly placed in N. lat. 60° 15´, and long. 31° 20´ (lib. i., cap. 3). The word derives from the Gaelic Tarbet, a drag, a portage, a haul-over, common names in Scoto-Scandinavia, and equivalent to the Icelandic Eið (aith). It lies only six miles from the nearest of the archipelago, which Pomponius Mela called Orcades, evidently a Roman corruption of the indigenous “Orkneyjar,” the Irish Innsi Orcc, and the Inis Torc of Ossian. Fordun’s “Scotichronicon” (ii. 2) calls the Orkneys “Insulæ Pomoniæ;” and Buchanan says, “Orcadum maxima multis veterum Pomona vocatur.” As poma are not abundant there, the name has caused considerable argumentation. In the “Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord” (1845-49), and in the “Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland” (Edinburgh, Neill, 1852), Professor A. Munch, of Christiania, contributes an able paper, “Why is the Mainland of Orkney called Pomona?” Before his time Dr (D.D.) George Barry, in an excellent book, “History of the Orkney Islands” (London, Longmans, 1805) had derived Pomona from “pou,” small (query, “Bú,” a settlement, or “bol,” corrupted to “bull,” a house?), and Mon, Patria; also from the Norsk terms signifying “Great-land.” Professor Munch quotes Torfæus (Orcad., p. 5), “Pomona ... a Julio polyhistore Diutina appellatur.” Solinus Polyhistor, facetiously known as Plinii Simius, says of Thule (chap. xxv.), “Ab Orcadibus Thyle usque quinque dierum et noctium navigatio. Sed Thule larga et diutina pomona copiosa est” (Thule is a fertile country, and plentifully productive of long-lasting corn). He would read the evidently mutilated text, “Sed Thule larga et Diutina pomona copiosa est,” or “Sed Thule larga et diutina, Pomona copiosa est,” and he finds that “Diutina ergò Pomona—ab esse ad posse valet consequentia.” But it is over ingenious to account by the error of a text for a popular term four hundred years old, e.g.,