The fog cleared away in the evening; our steamer was again in motion:  we landed at Kirkwall in the middle of the night, and when I went on deck the next morning, we were smoothly passing the shores of Fair Isle—­high and steep rocks, impending over the waters with a covering of green turf.  Before they were out of sight we saw the Shetland coast, the dark rock of Sumburgh Head, and behind it, half shrouded in mist, the promontory of Fitfiel Head,—­Fitful Head, as it is called by Scott, in his novel of the Pirate.  Beyond, to the east, black rocky promontories came in sight, one after the other, beetling over the sea.  At ten o’clock, we were passing through a channel between the islands leading to Lerwick, the capital of Shetland, on the principal island bearing the name of Mainland.  Fields, yellow with flowers, among which stood here and there a cottage, sloped softly down to the water, and beyond them rose the bare declivities and summits of the hills, dark with heath, with here and there still darker spots, of an almost inky hue, where peat had been cut for fuel.  Not a tree, not a shrub was to be seen, and the greater part of the soil appeared never to have been reduced to cultivation.

About one o’clock we cast anchor before Lerwick, a fishing village, built on the shore of Bressay Sound, which here forms one of the finest harbors in the world.  It has two passages to the sea, so that when the wind blows a storm on one side of the islands, the Shetlander in his boat passes out in the other direction, and finds himself in comparatively smooth water.  It was Sunday, and the man who landed us at the quay and took our baggage to our lodging, said as he left us—­

“It’s the Sabbath, and I’ll no tak’ my pay now, but I’ll call the morrow.  My name is Jim Sinclair, pilot, and if ye’ll be wanting to go anywhere, I’ll be glad to tak’ ye in my boat.”  In a few minutes we were snugly established at our lodgings.  There is no inn throughout all the Shetland Islands, which contain about thirty thousand inhabitants, but if any of my friends should have occasion to visit Lerwick, I can cheerfully recommend to them the comfortable lodging-house of Mrs. Walker, who keeps a little shop in the principal street, not far from Queen’s lane.  We made haste to get ready for church, and sallied out to find the place of worship frequented by our landlady, which was not a difficult matter.

The little town of Lerwick consists of two-story houses, built mostly of unhewn stone, rough-cast, with steep roofs and a chimney at each end.  They are arranged along a winding street parallel with the shore, and along narrow lanes running upward to the top of the hill.  The main street is flagged with smooth stones, like the streets in Venice, for no vehicle runs on wheels in the Shetland islands.  We went up Queen’s lane and soon found the building occupied by the Free Church of Scotland, until a temple of fairer proportions, on which the masons are now