In Crossing The Narrow Strait Which Separates The Noss From Bressay, I Observed On The Bressay Side, Overlooking The Water, A Round Hillock, Of Very Regular Shape, In Which The Green Turf Was Intermixed With Stones. "That," Said The Ferryman, "Is What We Call A Pictish Castle.

I mind when it was opened; it was full of rooms, so that ye could go over every part

Of it." I climbed the hillock, and found, by inspecting several openings, which had been made by the peasantry to take away the stones, that below the turf it was a regular work of Pictish masonry, but the spiral galleries, which these openings revealed, had been completely choked up, in taking away the materials of which they were built. Although plenty of stone may be found everywhere in the islands, there seems to be a disposition to plunder these remarkable remains, for the sake of building cottages, or making those inclosures for their cabbages, which the islanders call _crubs_. They have been pulling down the Pictish castle, on the little island in the fresh-water loch called Cleikimin, near Lerwick, described with such minuteness by Scott in his journal, till very few traces of its original construction are left. If the inclosing of lands for pasturage and cultivation proceeds as it has begun, these curious monuments of a race which has long perished, will disappear.

Now that we were out of hearing of the cries of the sea-birds, we were regaled with more agreeable sounds. We had set out, as we climbed the island of Bressay, amid a perfect chorus of larks, answering each other in the sky, and sometimes, apparently, from the clouds; and now we heard them again overhead, pouring out their sweet notes so fast and so ceaselessly, that it seemed as if the little creatures imagined they had more to utter, than they had time to utter it in. In no part of the British Islands have I seen the larks so numerous or so merry, as in the Shetlands.

We waited awhile at the wharf by the minister's house in Bressay, for Jim Sinclair, who at length appeared in his boat to convey us to Lerwick. "He is a noisy fallow," said our good landlady, and truly we found him voluble enough, but quite amusing. As he rowed us to town he gave us a sample of his historical knowledge, talking of Sir Walter Raleigh and the settlement of North America, and told us that his greatest pleasure was to read historical books in the long winter nights. His children, he said, could all read and write. We dined on a leg of Shetland mutton, with a tart made "of the only fruit of the Island" as a Scotchman called it, the stalks of the rhubarb plant, and went on board of our steamer about six o'clock in the afternoon. It was matter of some regret to us that we were obliged to leave Shetland so soon. Two or three days more might have been pleasantly passed among its grand precipices, its winding straits, its remains of a remote and rude antiquity, its little horses, little cows, and little sheep, its sea-fowl, its larks, its flowers, and its hardy and active people. There was an amusing novelty also in going to bed, as we did, by daylight, for at this season of the year, the daylight is never out of the sky, and the flush of early sunset only passes along the horizon from the northwest to the northeast, where it brightens into sunrise.

The Zetlanders, I was told by a Scotch clergyman, who had lived among them forty years, are naturally shrewd and quick of apprehension; "as to their morals," he added, "if ye stay among them any time ye'll be able to judge for yourself." So, on the point of morals, I am in the dark. More attention, I hear, is paid to the education of their children than formerly, and all have the opportunity of learning to read and write in the parochial schools. Their agriculture is still very rude, they are very unwilling to adopt the instruments of husbandry used in England, but on the whole they are making some progress. A Shetland gentleman, who, as he remarked to me, had "had the advantage of seeing some other countries" besides his own, complained that the peasantry were spending too much of their earnings for tea, tobacco, and spirits. Last winter a terrible famine came upon the islands; their fisheries had been unproductive, and the potato crop had been cut off by the blight. The communication with Scotland by steamboat had ceased, as it always does in winter, and it was long before the sufferings of the Shetlanders were known in Great Britain, but as soon as the intelligence was received, contributions were made and the poor creatures were relieved.

Their climate, inhospitable as it seems, is healthy, and they live to a good old age. A native of the island, a baronet, who has a great white house on a bare field in sight of Lerwick, and was a passenger on board the steamer in which we made our passage to the island, remarked that if it was not the healthiest climate in the world, the extremely dirty habits of the peasantry would engender disease, which, however, was not the case. "It is, probably, the effect of the saline particles in the air," he added. His opinion seemed to be that the dirt was salted by the sea-winds, and preserved from further decomposition. I was somewhat amused, in hearing him boast of the climate of Shetland in winter. "Have you never observed" said he, turning to the old Scotch clergyman of whom I have already spoken, "how much larger the proportion of sunny days is in our islands than at the south?" "I have never observed it," was the dry answer of the minister.

The people of Shetland speak a kind of Scottish, but not with the Scottish accent.

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