seven days in the savage bay of Levenswick--to read a book in the
much agitated cabin--to go on deck and hear the gale scream in his
ears, and see the landscape dark with rain and the ship plunge at
her two anchors--and to turn in at night and wake again at morning,
in his narrow berth, to the glamorous and continued voices of the
gale.

His perils and escapes were beyond counting. I shall only refer to
two: the first, because of the impression made upon himself; the
second, from the incidental picture it presents of the north
islanders. On the 9th October 1794 he took passage from Orkney in
the sloop Elizabeth of Stromness. She made a fair passage till
within view of Kinnaird Head, where, as she was becalmed some three
miles in the offing, and wind seemed to threaten from the south-
east, the captain landed him, to continue his journey more
expeditiously ashore. A gale immediately followed, and the
Elizabeth was driven back to Orkney and lost with all hands. The
second escape I have been in the habit of hearing related by an
eye-witness, my own father, from the earliest days of childhood.
On a September night, the Regent lay in the Pentland Firth in a fog
and a violent and windless swell. It was still dark, when they
were alarmed by the sound of breakers, and an anchor was
immediately let go. The peep of dawn discovered them swinging in
desperate proximity to the Isle of Swona {54a} and the surf
bursting close under their stern. There was in this place a hamlet
of the inhabitants, fisher-folk and wreckers; their huts stood
close about the head of the beach. All slept; the doors were
closed, and there was no smoke, and the anxious watchers on board
ship seemed to contemplate a village of the dead. It was thought
possible to launch a boat and tow the Regent from her place of