The history of the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell : $b a gentleman, who, tho' deaf and dumb, writes down any stranger's name at first sight, with their future contingencies of fortune
General
The history of the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell : $b a gentleman, who, tho' deaf and dumb, writes down any stranger's name at first sight, with their future contingencies of fortune
Campbell, Duncan, 1680?-1730; Deaf people -- Great Britain -- Biography; Occultism -- Early works to 1900; Prophets -- Great Britain -- Biography
Shetland lies north-east from Orkney, between sixty and sixty-one
degrees of latitude. The largest isle of Shetland, by the natives called
the Mainland, is sixty miles in length from south-west to the
north-east, and from sixteen, to one mile, in breadth.
The people who live in the smaller isles have abundance of eggs and
fowl, which contributes to maintain their families during the summer.
The ordinary folks are mostly very nimble and active in climbing the
rocks in quest of those eggs and fowl. This exercise is far more
diverting than hunting and hawking among us, and would certainly for the
pleasure of it, be followed by people of greater distinction, was it not
attended with very great dangers, sufficient to turn sport into sorrow,
and which have often proved fatal to those who too eagerly pursue their
game. Mr. Archibald Campbell, however, delighted extremely in this way
of fowling, and used to condescend to mix with the common people for
company, because none of the youths of his rank and condition were
venturesome enough to go along with him.
The most remarkable experiment of this sort, is at the isle called the
Noss of Brassah: the Noss standing at sixteen fathoms distance from the
side of the opposite main: the higher and lower rocks have two stakes
fastened in each of them, and to these there are ropes tied; upon the
ropes there is an engine hung which they call a cradle, and in this a
man makes his way over from the greater to the smaller rocks, where he
makes a considerable purchase of eggs and fowl; but his return being by
an ascent, makes it the more dangerous, though those on the great rock
have a rope tied to the cradle, by which they draw it and the man safe
over for the most part. Over this rock Mr. Archibald Campbell and five
others were in that manner let down by cradles and ropes; but before
they could be all drawn back again, it grew dark, and their associates
not daring to be benighted, were forced to withdraw, and Mr. Campbell
was the unfortunate person left behind, having wandered too far, and not
minded how the day declined, being intent on his game. He passed that
night, you may easily guess, without much sleep, and with great anxiety
of heart. The night, too, as he lay in the open air, was, to add to his
misfortunes, as boisterous and tempestuous as his own mind; but in the
end the tempest proved very happy for him. The reader is to understand
that the Hamburghers, Bremeners, and Hollanders, carry on a great fish
trade there. Accordingly, a Holland vessel, that was just coming in the
sound of Brassah, was by this tempest driven into a creek of the rock,
which nature had made into a harbour, and they were providentially
saved from the bottom of the sea by a rock, from which, humanly
speaking, they could expect nothing but destruction, and being sent to
the bottom of that sea. As never could a man be taken hold of with so
sudden and surprising a disaster, so nobody could meet with a more
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