Norse pirates having made the islands the headquarters of their buccaneering expeditions indifferently against their own Norway and the coasts and isles of Scotland; Harold Haarfager ("Fair Hair") subdued the rovers in 875 and both the Orkneys and Shetlands to Norway.
From this point of vantage he began depredations on the Red Sea (1182), building a fleet, and seeking to attack Medina and Mecca - a policy which may be interpreted either as mere buccaneering, or as a calculated attempt to deal a blow at Mahommedanism in its very centre.
For buccaneering had now become a most profitable employment, operations were extended, and a storehouse secure from the attacks of the Spaniards was required.
England at any rate would have had no valid ground of complaint if the leaders of a buccaneering force had been summarily dealt with by the Transvaal authorities.
The record of the journey across Africa, with its surprising anticipations of subsequent discoveries, yields in interest to no work of the kind known to us; and the semipiratical Quaker who accompanies Singleton in his buccaneering expeditions is a most life-like character.
