e had already
visited the Cathedral of St. Magnus and the Stones of Stennis; and on
the morrow he intended visiting the Dwarfie Stone; though I ventured to
suggest that, as a broad sound lay between Stromness and Hoy, and as the
morrow was the Sabbath, he might find some difficulty in doing that. His
circle of acquirement was, I found, rather literary than scientific. It
seemed, however, to be that of a really accomplished young man, greatly
better founded in his scholarship than most of our young Scotchmen on
quitting the national universities; and I felt, as we conversed
together, chiefly on English literature and general politics, how much
poorer a figure I would have cut in his country than he cut in mine. I
found, on coming down from my room next morning to a rather late
breakfast, that he had been out among the Stromness fishermen, and had
returned somewhat chafed. Not a single boatman could he find in a
populous seaport town that would undertake to carry him to the Dwarfie
Stone on the Sabbath,--a fact, to their credit, which it is but simple
justice to state. I saw him afterwards in the Free Church, listening
attentively to a thoroughly earnest and excellent discourse, by the
Disruption minister of the parish, Mr. Learmonth; and in the course of
the evening he dropped in for a short time to the Free Church
Sabbath-school, where he took his seat beside one of the teachers, as if
curious to ascertain more in detail the character of the instruction
which had operated so influentially on the boatmen, and which he had
seen telling from the pulpit with such evident effect. What would not
his country now give,--now, while drifting loose from all its old
moorings, full on the perils of a lee shore,--for the anchor of a faith
equally steadfast! He was a Lutheran, he told me; but, as is too common
in Germany, his actual beliefs appeared to be very considerably at
variance with his hereditary creed. The creed was a tolerably sound one,
but the living belief regarding it seemed to do little more than take
cognizance of what he deemed the fact of its death.

I had carried with me a letter of introduction to Mr. William Watt, to
whom I have already had occasion to refer as an intelligent geologist;
but the letter I had no opportunity of delivering. Mr. Watt had learned,
however, of my being in the neighborhood, and kindly walked into
Stromness, some six or eight miles, on the morning of Monday, to meet
with me, bringing me a