It was a miserable disappointment, every fish that could be had was poached on the spawning beds and by any other means at any other time; but on some of the outer islands, I believe, matters were better.
What there were were very fine fish; we had nine in all, four of which weighed 6-1/2lb.
What a small world it is! Charley was fishing away in Brouster Loch in waders up to his middle, when someone calls out: "Holloa, Charley, what are you doing here?" And there was his class master at Clifton College also up to his middle.
On our return to Caithness we had a horribly stormy passage from Lerwick to Wick, putting in for the night at Kirkwall in Orkney, to shelter from stress of weather.
Lerwick is a very pretty little town, the most northerly in Great Britain, doing a good and lively trade in fishing matters, and having a great many visitors in the season. For those cockneys who have the blessed faculty of defying mal de mer, and enjoying bottled porter and a pipe with the ocean in commotion—and my experience, so far as it goes, is that in those northern latitudes it always is in commotion—what can be a pleasanter or a cheaper sea trip than to go by the Aberdeen boat from London Bridge to Aberdeen, and thence to Lerwick viâ Wick, and round the islands in the trading steamer, and home by the West Coast.
Shetland from the outside looks very nice. It is indented in every direction with fiords, or voes they call them there, with very fine cliff scenery.
But the inside is dismal, the crofters and fishermen pare the turf and heather for winter bedding for their cattle, and, what with that and peat cutting for fuel, they leave the surface of the hills very black looking and hideous.
There is some good heather, perhaps about seven thousand acres, in the main island, and it would, no doubt, carry some grouse, if any means could be devised for destroying the swarms of greyback gulls, hoodie crows, and hawks.
Not a living thing can show, without being pounced upon and devoured. The only game of any description that I saw was two snipe; not even a rabbit.