The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campell

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 sudden and surprising relief than Mr. Campbell found when he saw a ship so near. He made to the vessel, and begged the Hollanders to take him in; they asked him what he would give them, or, said the barbarous sailors, we will even leave you where you are; he told them his disaster, but they asked money, and nothing else would move them: as he knew them a self-interested people, he bethought himself, that if he should tell them of the plenty of fowls and eggs they would get there, he might not only be taken in a passenger, but made a partner in the money arising from the stock; it succeeded accordingly: when he proposed it, the whole crew were all at work, and, in four hours, pretty well stored the vessel, and then, returning on board, set sail for Holland. They offered Mr. Campbell to put him in at his own island; but having a mind to see Holland, and being a partner, to learn their way of merchandize, which he thought he might turn to his countrymen's advantage, he told them he would go the voyage out with them, and see the country of those who were his deliverers; a necessary way of speech, when one has a design to sooth barbarians, who, but for interest, would have left him unredeemed, and, for aught they knew, a perpetual sole inhabitant of a dreadful rock, encompassed round with precipices, some three hundred fathoms high. Not so the islanders, who are wrongly called a savage set of mortals; no, they came in quest of him after so bitter a night, not doubting to find him, but fearing to find him in a lamentable condition; they hunted and ransacked every little hole and corner in the rock, but all in vain. In one place they saw a great slaughter of fowls, enough to serve forty families for a week; and then they guessed, though they had not the ill fortune to meet the eagles frequently noted to hover about those isles, that they might have devoured part of him on some precipice of the rock, and dropped the remnant into the sea. Night came upon them, and they were afraid of falling into the same disaster they went to relieve Mr. Campbell from. They returned each to their proper basket, and were drawn up safe by their respective friends, who were amazed that one basket was drawn up empty which was let down for Mr. Campbell, and that there was not the least intelligence to be had concerning him, but the suppositious story of his having been devoured by eagles. The story was told at home; and with the lamentation of the whole family, and all his friends, he was looked upon to be murdered or dead.

Return we now to Mr. Archibald Campbell, still alive, and on board the Holland vessel; secure, as he thought within himself that, from the delivery he lately had by the gift of Providence, he was not intended to be liable to any more misfortunes and dangers of life, in the compass of so small a voyage. But his lot was placed otherwise in the book of fate, than he too fondly imagined: his time of happiness was dated some pages lower down, and more rubs and difficulties were to be encountered with, before his stars intended to lead him to the port of felicity. Just as he arrived within sight of Amsterdam, a terrible storm arose, and, in danger of their lives, for many hours, they weathered out the tempest; and a calm promising fair afresh, they made to the coast of Zealand; but a new hurricane prevented the ship from coming there also; and after having lost their masts and rigging, they were driven into Lapland. There they went ashore in order to careen and repair their ship, and take in provisions; while the ship was repairing by the Dutch, our islander made merry with the inhabitants, being the most inclined to their superstitious customs; he there became acquainted with a very beautiful woman, who fell in love with him, and after a very short space of time he married her. About the time when the ship departed, his wife, who was very rich, was big with child of a son, namely, Mr. Duncan Campbell. He wrote a letter by the master of the vessel to his parents in Shetland, concerning the various adventures he had met with, which was delivered the June following, about the time of fishing, to his parents, and several persons had copies thereof, and, for aught I know, some retain them to this very day; sure I am that many remember the particulars of this, surprising affair, who are now living in that island.

The letter being very remarkable and singular in all its circumstances, I shall present it to the reader word for word, as it was given into my hands, together with some others which he wrote afterwards, in all which I am assured by very credible persons, and undoubted authorities, there are not the least alterations, but what the version of it from the then Scotch manner of expression into a more modern English dress, made absolutely necessary.

My Dearest Father,

The same odd variety of accident, which put it out of my power to be personally present with you for so long a time, put it likewise out of my power to write to you. At last fortune has so ordered it, that I can send a letter to you before I can come myself, and it is written expressly to tell you the adventures I have met with, which have detained me this tedious space of time from my dear father, and because the same captain of a ship that brings you this, might as easily have brought your son to speak for himself. I shall in the next place lay before you the necessity there is for my stay a little longer among the strange natives of the country where I now inhabit, and where I am, in a manner, become naturalized.

You have, no doubt of it, been informed by my companions, some of whom I hope got safe back again, if not all, that I was lost, where many a brave man has perished before me, by going over the high precipices of the mountain Brassah, in a basket, sliding down by a rope. I must suppose I have given you the anguish of a father for a son, who you thought had lost his life by such a foolhardy attempt, and I implore your pardon with all the power of filial contrition, penitence, and duty. You have always showed me such singular marks of paternal affection, that I know your receipt of this letter will fill your heart with joy, and cause you to sign me an absolution and free pardon for all the errors I have committed, and think the sufferings I have undergone for my rashness and indiscretion, a sufficient atonement for my crime of making you by my undutifulness, a partner of my sorrows. To free you the more from this uneasiness, I know I need only tell you, that every grief of mine is gone excepting one, which is, that I must still lose the pleasure of seeing you a little longer. There was never surely a more bitter night than that which must by me be for ever remembered, when I was lost in the mountain of Brassah, where I must, for aught I know, have lived for ever a wild single inhabitant, but that the storm which made the night so uneasy to me, rendered the first approach of daylight, beyond measure delightful. The first providential glimpse of the morning gave me a view of a ship driven by the tempest into a creek of the rock, that was by nature formed like a harbour; a miraculous security of deliverance, as I thought, both for the ship's crew and myself. I made all the haste I could, you may be sure, to them, and I found them to be Dutchmen that were come for fish; but in lieu of fish I instructed them to load it with eggs and fowl, which we compassed very happily in a short space of time, and I was to be a sharer with the captain in the lading, and bargained to go for Holland, to see the sale, and nature of the traffic; but when we were at sea, after much bad weather, we made towards Zealand, but we were driven upon the coast of Finland by a new storm, and thence into Lapland, where I now am, and from whence I send you this letter.

I could not come into a place so properly named for my reception; as I had been undutiful to you, and fortune seemed to make me an exile, or a banished man, by way of punishment for the vices of my youth; so Lapland (which is a word originally derived from the Finland word lappi, that is, exiles, and from the Sweden word lap, signifying banished, from which two kingdoms most of our inhabitants were banished hither, for not embracing the Christian religion), was certainly the properest country in the world to receive me.

When first I entered this country, I thought I was got into quite another world; the men are all of them pigmies to our tall, brawny Highlanders; they are, generally speaking, not above three cubits high, insomuch that though the whole country of Lapland is immensely large, and I have heard it reckoned by the inhabitants to be above a hundred German leagues in length, and fourscore and ten in breadth, yet I was the tallest man there, and looked upon as a giant. The district in which I live now, is called Uma Lapmark. You must understand, sir, that when I landed at North Cape, in Kimi Lapmark, another district of Lapland, there was at that time a most beautiful lady come to see a sick relation of her father's, who was prefect, or governor of Uma Lapmark, which is a post of great distinction. This lady, by being frequently in the company of French merchants, who traffic now and then in that province of Uma Lapmark, understood French, and having heard of a man six foot and a half high, desired to see me, and when I came, she happened mightily to like my person; and she talked French, which when I answered, she made great signs of joy, that she could communicate her sentiments to me, and she told me who she was, how rich, and that not one in the company besides could understand a syllable we said, and so I might speak my mind freely to her; she told me the customs of the country, that it was divided into cantons, like our shires, and those cantons into rekars, or certain grounds allotted to families, that are just like our clans. As she was beyond measure beautiful, she was extremely good humoured, a thing rarely to be met among Lapland women, of a better stature than her country women, and very rich, and of good birth: I thought it would be a prodigious turn of fortune, for a man in my circumstances, if I could make any progress in her heart, which she seemed a little to open to me, in such a manner, for the beginning, as if such a successful event, if managed with prudence, might not be despaired off. Souls that are generous are apt to love, and compassion is the best introducer of love into a generous bosom, and that was the best stock I had to go upon in my courtship! I told her of all my calamities, my dangers, and my escapes; the goodness of my birth, as being allied to one of the greatest nobles in our island; and still she would ask me to tell it her over again, though every time I told it, just at such and such passages, she was forced to drop the tears from her eyes. In fine, I grew more in love with her, more out of a sense of gratitude now, than by the power of her charms before; the matter in a few days went so far, that she owned to me I had her heart. As to marriage, I did not then know the custom of the nation; I thought that if it proved only dangerous to me, I loved her so well that I intended to marry her, though the law was to pronounce me dead for it; but I did not know whether it might not be perilous for her too, to engage in such a state with me, and I resolved in that case, rather to be singly unhappy, than to involve her in distress, and make her the fair companion of my woes. I would not tell her so, for fear she should out of love hide from me those dangers, and therefore using a kind sort of dissimulation, I conjured her to tell me the laws and customs of marriages in that country to a tittle, and that nothing should hinder us from happiness. She told me exactly, as I find since. Our marriage, said she, will be very hard to compass; provided we follow the strict rule of the country. For our women here, are bound not to see the man who makes their addresses to them, in some time. His way of courtship is to come to the parents, and his nearest friends and relations must make her father presents, and supplicate him like a king, to grant him his daughter. The courtship often lasts two or three years, and sometimes has not its effect at last; but if it has, the woman is dragged by her father and brother to church, as unwilling to go to be married, which is looked upon as a greater part of modesty in her, according to the greater disinclination she shows. My father and brother, said she, will both be against it; you have no relations in this country to move your suit, I cannot be so hypocritical as to be dragged unwillingly to him I own I desire for my lawful husband, and therefore, as I have an inclination to you, and I dare own I have, I will not follow those methods which I disapprove. I have talked with several Swedes, and several polite Frenchmen, about their manner of espousals, and I am told, that when souls are naturally united by affection, the couple so mutually and reciprocally loving, though they had rather have their parents' leave if likely to be got, yet, unwilling to be disappointed, only go to the next minister's and marry for better for worse. This way I approve of, for where two persons naturally love each other, the rest is nothing but a modest restraint to their wishes, and since it is only custom, my own reason teaches me there is no error committed, nor any harm done in breaking through it upon so commendable an occasion. I have, added she, a thousand rein-deer belonging to me, beyond my father's power of taking away, and a third share in a rekar or clan, that is ten leagues in compass, in the byar or canton of Uma Lapmark. This is at my own disposal, and it is all your own, if you please to accept of it with me. Our women are very coy, when they are courted, though they have never so much an inclination to their suitor; but good reason and the commerce I have had with persons of politer nations than ours is, teach me that this proceeds entirely from vanity and affectation, and the greatest proof of a woman's modesty, chastity, and sincerity, certainly consists, contrary to the general corrupted opinion, in yielding up herself into the arms of the man she loves. For she that can dally with a heart she prizes, can give away her heart, when she is once balked, to any man, even though she dislikes him. You must judge, my dear father, I must be touched with a woman that was exceeding beautiful, beyond any of her nation, and who had thoughts as beautiful as her person. I therefore was all in rapture, and longed for the matrimony, but still loved her enough to propose the question, I resolved, to her, viz., if it would not be in her nation accounted a clandestine marriage, and prove of great damage to her.

To this she answered with all the wisdom which could be expected from a woman who had given such eminent tokens of her judgment on other points, amidst a nation so barbarous in its manners, and so corrupt in its principles, as Lapland is. I am, said she, answerable to my father, for nothing by our laws, having no portion of him, but only what was presented me by my relations at my birth, according to custom, in lands and rein-deer. My father is but deputy governor; it is a Swede who is the governor of Uma; and if I pay to him at every mart and fair the due tribute, which must either consist of fifty rein-deer or one hundred and fifty rixdollars, he will have the priest that marries us present at the court of justice, according to our custom, and keep us in possession of our rights, that we may be enabled to pay tribute to the crown of Sweden. Indeed, before the abolition of the Birkarti, which were our native judges, we could not have married thus without danger to us both; but now there is none at all.

My dear father, you must easily imagine that I could not help embracing with all tenderness so dear and so lovely a woman. In fine, I am married to her, I have lived very happy hitherto, and am now grown more happy, for she is big with child; and likely, before my letter comes to your hands, to make you a grandfather of a pretty boy. You will perhaps wonder that I name the sex of the child before it comes into the world, but we have a way in Lapland of finding that out, which though some judicious people call superstitious, I am really persuaded of by experience, and therefore I indulged my dear wife's curiosity, when she signified to me she had a mind to make the usual trial, whether the child she was going to be delivered of would be a boy or a girl.

You must understand, my dear father, the people here judge of the sex of the child by the moon, unto which they compare a big-bellied woman. If they see a star appear just above the moon, it is a sign it will be a boy, but, if the star be just below the moon, they conjecture her to be big with a girl. This observation and remark of Laplanders has, I know, been accounted by some, and those wise and judicious men too, to be ridiculously superstitious; but I have been led into an easy belief of this mystery, by a mistress that is superior to wisdom itself, constant, and therefore probably infallible, experience. I therefore indulged my wife in this her request, and went with her to the ceremony; the star appeared above the moon, which prognosticates a boy, which I wish may, and I scarce doubt will, prove true, and when she is brought to bed I will send you word of it. It is remarkable, likewise, that a star was seen just before the moon, which we also count a very good omen. For it is a custom likewise here in Lapland, to consult the moon, as an oracle about the health and vigour of the child. If a star be seen just before the moon, we count it a sign of a lusty and well grown child, without blemish; if a star comes just after, we reckon it a token that the child will have some defect or deformity, or die soon after it is born.

Having thus told you the manners of the country I live in at present, as much at large as the nature of a letter will permit, and related to you my own happy circumstances, and the kindly promises of the heavens that are ushering in the birth of my child, I would not have you think that I addict myself to the superstitions of the country, which are very many and groundless, and arising partly from the remainder of Pagan worship, which is still cultivated among some of the more obstinate inhabitants. I have, on the contrary, since I married her, endeavoured to repay my wife's temporal blessings to me with those that are endless, instructed her in all the points of religion, and made her perfectly a Christian; and she, by her devotion and prayers for me, makes me such amends for it that I hope in us two St. Paul's saying will be verified, viz., "That the woman shall be sanctified in her husband, and the husband shall be sanctified in his wife."

However, I must take notice in this place, with all due deference to Christianity, that though I am obliged to applaud the prudence and piety of Charles the Ninth of Sweden, who, constituting Swedish governors over this country, abrogated their practice of superstitions and art magic upon pain of death, yet that king carried the point too far, and intermingled with these arts the pretensions to the gift of a second-sight, which you know how frequent it is with us in Scotland, and which, I assure you, my wife (though she durst not publicly own it for fear of incurring the penalty of those Swedish laws) does, as it were, inherit (for all her ancestors before her have had it from time immemorial) to a greater degree than ever I knew any of our countrywomen or countrymen.

One day last week she distracted me between the extremes of joy and sorrow. She told me I should see you shortly, and that my coming son would grow to be one of the most remarkable men in England and Scotland, for his power of foresight; but that I should speedily lose her, and meet with difficulties in my own country, in the same manner as my father, meaning you, sir, had done before me, and on the same account, viz., of civil broils, and intestine wars in Scotland.

These unfortunate parts of her relation I would not conceal from you, because the veracity of her notions should appear, if they are true, though you may be sure I much wish they all may prove false to the very last; excepting that wherein she tells me, my son will be greatly remarkable, and that I shall shortly see my dear father, which I daily long for, and will endeavour to do as soon as possible. Pray remember me to all friends; being,

Honoured sir,Your most dutiful and loving son,Archibald Campbell.THE SECOND LETTER

I am now the happiest man alive; the prosperous part of my wife's predictions, which I mentioned to you in my last, is come in some measure to pass. The child she has brought me proves a boy, and as fine a one as I ever beheld, (if fondness for my own makes me not blind); and sure it cannot be fondness, because other plain circumstances joined at his birth to prove it a more than ordinary remarkable one. He was born with a caul upon his head, which we count one of the luckiest signs that can be in nature; he had likewise three teeth ready cut through the gums, and we reckon that an undeniable testimony and promise given to the world by nature, that she intends such a person for her extraordinary favourite, and that he is born for great things, which I daily beg of heaven may come to pass.

Since I have known for some months what it is to be a father, it adds a considerable weight to those affections which I had for my wife. I thought that my tenderness for her was at the height of perfection before; which shows how little we know of those parts of nature that we have yet never tried, and of which we have not yet been allotted our share to act upon the stage of life. I find that I did love her then as well as a husband could love a wife, that is, a wife without a child; but the love to a wife that has a child, is a feeling wonderful and inexpressibly different. A child is the seal and the pledge of love. Meditating upon this, has likewise doubled my affection to you. I loved you before, as a son, and because as such, I felt your tenderness; but my love is much increased now, because I know the tenderness which you felt for me as a father. With these pleasing images of thought, I often keep you nearer company at this vast distance, than when I lived irregularly under your eye. These reflections render a solitary life dear to me. And though I have no manner of acquaintance with her relations, who hate me, as I am told, nor indeed with almost any of the inhabitants, but my own domestics, and those I am forced to deal with, yet I have as much, methinks, as I wish for, unless I could come over to Shetland and live with you, which I the more ardently desire, because I think I and my wife could be true comforts to you, in your advanced years; now I know what living truly is. I am daily persuading my wife to go with me; but she denies me with kind expressions, and says, she owes too much to the place, however less pleasant in itself than other climates, where she had the happiness of first joining hands with me in wedlock, ever to part from it. But I must explain how I ask, and how she refuses. I resolved never directly and downrightly to ask her, because I know she can refuse me nothing; and that would be bearing hard upon the goodness of her will. But my way of persuading her consists in endeavouring to make her in love with the place, by agreeable descriptions of it, and likewise of the humane temper of the people; so that I shortly shall induce her to signify to me that it is her own will to come with me, and then I shall seem rather to consent to her will, than to have moved it over to my own. These hopes I have of seeing my dear father very shortly, and I know such news would make this letter, which I therefore send, more acceptable to him, to whom I will be,