In The Morning, When The Gale Had
Blown Itself To Rest, I Went On Deck And Saw One Of The Faro Island
Ponies, Which Had Given Out During The Night, Stretched Dead Upon The
Deck.
I inquired if the body was to be committed to the deep.
"It is to be
skinned first," was the answer.
We stopped at Kirkwall in the Orkneys, long enough to allow us to look at
the old cathedral of St. Magnus, built early in the twelfth century - a
venerable pile, in perfect preservation, and the finest specimen of the
architecture once called Saxon, then Norman, and lately Romanesque, that I
have ever seen. The round arch is everywhere used, except in two or three
windows of later addition. The nave is narrow, and the central groined
arches are lofty; so that an idea of vast extent is given, though the
cathedral is small, compared with the great minsters in England. The work
of completing certain parts of the building which were left unfinished, is
now going on at the expense of the government. All the old flooring, and
the pews, which made it a parish church, have been taken away, and the
original proportions and symmetry of the building are seen as they ought
to be. The general effect of the building is wonderfully grand and solemn.
On our return to Scotland, we stopped for a few hours at Wick. It was late
in the afternoon, and the fishermen, in their vessels, were going out of
the harbor to their nightly toil.
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