Edward Charlton was a seventeen-year-old medical student when he sailed from Leith to Lerwick in 1832 and had to convince the authorities that the ship was not stricken with cholera. He arrived in time to witness the great storm which ravaged the fishing fleet that summer, and spent three months travelling through the Mainland, Yell and Unst and collecting specimens of birds and rocks. He was so enchanted by Shetland that he returned two years later, this time visiting Foula and also casting his fly on the Mainland lochs. His journals give a vivid picture of Shetland in the 1830s, and the changes he found when he came back for a more hurried visit in 1852.