At Oban we wondered at the fine knitted goods made in the Shetlands, each parish having its own specialty. This is true particularly of Fair Island on which the Spaniards were shipwrecked. Traces of the visit of these Southerners, both economic, moral, and physical, as we have noted, are still discernible. So delicate is the workmanship and so amazingly fine the fabric that stockings have been knitted which could be drawn through a finger ring. The women do most of the farm-work, laying aside the hoe and spade to spend their spare time with the needles in knitting caps, gloves, stockings, and waistcoats of the most varied patterns and in many combinations of color. In one of Murillo’s pictures, in the Dulwich Galleries, near London, is that famous one of the Flower Girl. She wears a shawl, which shows the pretty patterns reproduced in the knitted work of the Fair Island fair. “Parallel lines, diamonds, crosses, mathematical figures of every bright color are here, intermixed thread by thread, in the brightest contrast and beauty, each row being about one inch in size.” Fishing is the chief occupation in the Shetlands and the mainstay of existence of the men, who with their families are very primitive and orthodox--for “orthodoxy,” of the traditional sort, besides being very easy, is a great saving of brain labor. Of old, the Dutch used to control the fisheries, and during their handling of them, it is said they derived a total sum of more than a billion dollars in profits from the business. One must read “The Pirate,” by Scott, to get the atmosphere of this little island world. In the Town Hall at Lerwick, which is the capital of the Shetland Islands, are modern stained-glass windows which illustrate the history of the Shetlands. Visitors go by steamer to the Shetlands, chiefly to behold the wonderful cliff scenery, and men of science to study the work of glaciers. So well used have these wonderful graving-tools of the Almighty been, in ages past, that it is said that no place in the Shetland Isles is more distant than three miles from the sea. Scott’s last novel, which he named “Castle Dangerous,” refers not to this insular group, but what a good name for these remote regions of Britain, so feared by sailors, the title of his romance would make! Yet in addition to Nature’s handiwork, done by glaciers, and to the weird scenery of the rocks, chiselled by ice and lashed by the ever-corroding sea waves, there are works of early man peculiar to the whole north of Scotland beyond the Great Glen or Caledonian Canal, which awaken curiosity, challenge attention, and hold the interest of the thoughtful.