The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1877-06-30
Lerwick, Shetland.

On the hillside rising from the nOTtn
shore lie the clustering houses of the
town of Lerwick. Like the towns of
the Orkney Islands, it is curious jum-
bling together of low, gable-roofed,
small-windowed houses. The general
air of the place savors of the Low Coun-
tries towns. The short-skirted women,
with white frilled caps, heavy clothes,
and often wooden shoes, almost aston
ish one when they speak English instead
of Dutch. Over the winding, crooked
street with the great paving-Stones the
veritable Shetland ponies clatter along,
and the carts numbering behind them
make dull rumbling. 1t is on market
days that Lerwick dons her holiday
dress. The little quays, privately own
ed, and jutting out into the waters of
the bay, are alive with men, women and
children. 1t is the custom on such days
for people of the neighboring islands to
enter their boats, and, with their cargo
of peat, set sail for the town. Often
there will be great numbers of these
well-laden boats entering the harbor,
and swarming around the piers like bees
about a hive. The women leap from
the boats, and singing the basket of
peat over their shoulders, start off for
the nearest shop, that they may barter
for this and the other. The men, left
behind, clothed in rough tarpaulinS and
odd home-spun clothes, lazily fasten
their boats, and pass the news with their
friends. But not only do visitors come
from seaward. From the central part of
the island-from the regions of solitude
and peat-bogs-numberlesS troops come
winding over the hill behind the town,
down the slope, to the market-place.-
1t is quaint sight to watch them. The
little ponies, shaggy of name, and with
long, handsome tails, are heavily bur-
Fdened. They have no bride, only
string about their neck; on their backs
are pack-saddles, often so covered with
baps of peat, or perhaps grass, that the
pony is scarcely to be seen at all. If
by chance, after all the goods are crowd
ed upon the docile animals back, one
small portion of the rump appears, the
good woman, his master, leaps lightly
on, and away goes pony, bags, and wo
man to the town beyond. When this
collection of ponies, men, women, and
children is seen together, the sight is
very picturesque. All look SO odd, are
SO animated, that one long remembers
it. After the days trading is over,
away 60 the boat loads, singing and laugh
ing, the women pulling the stronger oar.
Over the hill the long file of ponies and
riders wend their way homeward.-Har-
fSr's Magazine tor 5Hy.
How NATURE DEVELOPS ITSELF
The various diseases which attack boy
hood are worthy of study. When man
is sick he just takes to his bed and says
no more about it. If he is very sick he
is calm, placid and tractable. He takes
his medicine without murmur, and sips
his chicken broth with becoming graft
tude. If he is only little i'll he is hard
er to take care of than half a menagerie.
He can do more grumbling and find
more fault without cause than the most
ambitious hypochondriac could hope to
put into lifetime. But boy is gen.
orally taken with alarming, if not fatal,
symptoms at about half-past 8 A. M,
when school opens at 9. The fond
mother looks at his tongue, feels of his
head to see if it is bursting with fever,
and then tells her husband to drop in at
the doctors on his way down, and ask
him to hurry lest he be too late. AT
exactly 9 O'Clock the boys pulse grows
steadier, and there is a calmer look in
his eyes. The extreme lassitude which
betokened typhoid has passed off, and
by the time the boys in his class are
wishing that they had been smart enough
to have the same fever, he is sitting by
the rivers brink and putting worm on
the hook. Boyhood is peculiar.
D@-A Sunday school superintendent
/ -, oAA