The steadiness with which these ponies travel through the most rugged paths is surprising. In both 1806 and 1807, I made several expeditions into the country mounted on them. An islander preceded me to point out the way. At first I thought my brains must have been dashed out, but I soon recovered from this panic. In the most wretched and precipitous paths, the animal never made a single false step, and also travelled with considerable agility. The Shetland cows are also very small, and, owing to the scarcity of fodder, give but little milk. They are kept close in the house, summer and winter; and are littered with heath, and sometimes with peat mould. The women of Shetland are, in general, ignorant of making cheese; but their butter, when manufactured for sale, is equal to any that can be found elsewhere. That made for the payment of rent is of a much inferior quality. It was an old custom here to pay their rent one half in grease butter at Lammas, and the other half in money at Martinmas. This custom, however, is generally relinquished, and the butter converted into money. Their method of making butter being curious, I have thought proper to describe it. They fill their churn with milk, which they churn in the usual way till the oleaginous part be made to separate from the serum. They then throw in some red-hot stones, and continue churning till the butter float at the top, when it is taken out, and carefully washed and salted. The butter-milk being boiled, what floats on the surface is used as food, and the residue is esteemed an excellent beverage; and when kept over winter, they reckon it an efficacious antidote against the bad effects arising from the constant use of fish. Their swine are of a remarkably small size, short-backed, and easily fed. A pig ready for the spit is often sold at two shillings. Their sheep (the most profitable part of their live stock, and which are calculated to be from 110,000 to 120,000 in number,) are likewise of very small growth. One between three and five years old, sells from four to seven shillings. In winter, especially when the ground is covered with snow, these animals feed on the sea-weed, with which the shores are covered. This they resort to by a kind of natural instinct; for as soon as the tide begins to ebb, the whole body of them (although feeding several miles off) make for the seashores, where they stay as long as the tide will permit them, and then return to their usual walks.