Arriv’d at South Rannaldshaw an Ile of five miles long, and thwarting the Ile of Burray, I sighted Kirkwall, the Metropole of Pomonia, the mayne Land of Orknay, and the onely Mistresse of all the circumjacent Iles being thirty in number. The chiefest whereof (besides this tract of ground, in length twenty sixe, and broad five, sixe and seven miles) are the Iles of Sanda, Westra, and Stronza: Kirkwall it selfe is adorned with the stately and magnifick Church of St. Magnus built by the Danes, whose Signiory with the Iles lately it was; but indeed for the time present, more beautified with the godly life of a most venerable and religious Bishop Mr. George Grahame: whom now I may tearme (Soveraignity excepted) to be the Father of the Countries government, then an Ecclesiasticke Prelat: The Inhabitants being left void of a Governour, or solid Patrone, are just become like to a [X. 506.]broken battell, a scattered people without a head: having but a Burges Shreive to administer Justice, and he too an Aliene to them, and a Resider in Edenburgh: So that in most differences, and questions of importance, the Plaintives are inforced to implore the Bishop for their Judge, and hee, the adverse Party for redresse.
Zetland mightily impoverished by corrupt governement.But the more remote parts of this auncient little Kingdome, as Zetland, and the adjacent Iles there; have found such a sting of deoccular government within these few yeares; that these once happy Iles, which long agoe my feet traded over, are Metamorphosed in the Anatomy of succourlesse oppression, and the felicity of the Inhabitants, reinvolved within the closet of a Cittadinean cluster.
But now referring the whole particulars, and dividuall descriptions of these Septentrion Iles, the mayne Continent, and the Gigantick Hebridian Iles, to my aforesayd worke to be published, intitulated Lithgows surveigh of Scotland, I send this generall verdict to the World:
Now having seene most part of thy selfe glore
Great Kingdomes, Ilands, stately Courts, rich Townes,
Most gorgeous showes, pomp-glory deckt renownes,
Hearbagious fields, the Pelage-beating shoare
Propitious Princes, Prelats, potent Crownes:
Smoake shadow’d times, curst Churles, Misers, Clownes.
Impregnate Forts, devalling floods, and more