e
information to give you about some of the existing
superstitions of Orkney which might perhaps have some interest
for you. I have, however, been much engrossed with county
business during the last fortnight, and must therefore reserve
my account of these matters till another opportunity.

Mr. Balfour, our principal landowner in Orkney, is just now
writing an article on the ancient laws and customs of the
county to be prefixed to a miscellaneous collection of
documents, chiefly of the sixteenth century. He is taking the
opportunity to give an account of the nature of the tenures by
which the ancient Jarls held the Jarldom, and the manner in
which the odalret became gradually supplanted. I have furnished
him with several of the documents, and am just now going over
it with him. It is for the Bannatyne Club in Edinburgh that he
is preparing it, but I have suggested to him to have it printed
for general sale, as it is very interesting, and contains a
great mass of curious information condensed into a
comparatively small space. Mr. Balfour is very sorry that he
had not the pleasure of meeting you when you were here.

My last glimpse of George Borrow in Scotland during his memorable trip
of the winter of 1858 is contained in a letter that I received some time
ago from the Rev. J. Wilcock of St. Ringan's Manse, Lerwick, which runs
as follows:

_Nov. 18th, 1903._

DEAR SIR,--As I see that you are interested in George Borrow,
would you allow me to supply you with a little notice of him
which has not appeared in print? A friend here--need I explain
that this is written from the capital of the Shetlands?--a
friend, I say, now dead, told me that one day early in the
forenoon, during the winter, he had walked out from the town
for a stroll into the country. About a mile out from the town
is a piece of water called the Loch of Clickimin, on a
peninsula, in which is an ancient (so-called) 'Pictish Castle.'
His attention was attracted by a tall, burly stranger, who was
surveying this ancient relic with deep interest. As the water
of the loch was well up about the castle, converting the plot
of ground on which it stood almost altogether into an island,
the stranger took off shoes and stockings and trousers, and
waded all round the building in ord