A fair number of isolated homesteads lay scattered among the hills out in the skerries. I noticed that each of them occupied no more than a small valley and thus had only one or two arable fields and possibly a little meadow-land by the farm (and, perhaps, a little more further away). They could not subsist on it if they did not have such a good supply of fish to exploit and sell, for the sea up here contains both many species and great numbers of them. I heard much talk of whales.