'In some respects, however, the Zetland dwellings stand a
favourable comparison with those of the Western Islands.
There is a bareness and desolation about the misery of a Harris
house that is tenfold more depressing. It is a poor house and an
empty one - a decaying, mouldy shell, without the pretence of a
kernel. Whereas in Zetland there is usually a certain fulness.
There are bulky sea-chests, with smaller ones on the top of them;
chairs, with generally an effort at an easy one; a wooden bench, a
table, beds, spades, fishing-rods, baskets, and a score of other little
things, which help, after all, to make it a domus. The very teapot,
in Zetland always to be found at the fireside, speaks of home and
woman, and reminds one of the sobriety of the people - that very
important difference between them and the inhabitants of the
Hebridean islands. I think the Zetlanders, too, are more
intelligent, and more inclined to be industrious, and give greater
evidence of the tendency to accumulate or provide.

'Instead of describing the house occupied by each patient, I
have given this general account of the average Zetland dwelling,
and then, in my individual reports, I have spoken of the special
houses as of, above, or below the average.'

*Different terms signifying varieties of sod.


Since 1860, the dwellings of the people have undergone
considerable improvement, especially in the more advanced
districts, such as Unst; but the description given of them by Dr.
Cowie,* the latest writer on Shetland and himself a Shetlander,
and my own observation so far as it went, enables me to state