MORE ABOUT ST. KILDA.*
Sr. KILDA is certainly in a fair way to become famous. But a short time since, if any but a national school-boy had been asked where and what is St. Kilda, the chances are that the answer would have been eminently vague and unsatisfactory. Now, how- ever, it would be impossible to profess ignorance on the subject, for since the period of Mr. Sand's visit, the remote little island has had an amount of notice and been the subject of a torrent of acrimonious argument which would indeed astonish its few and peace-loving inhabitants, were it possible for them to become acquainted with the controversy to which they have very innocently given rise ; and in the early part of the present year, we were favoured with quite an important-looking vol- ume entirely devoted to the island and its concerns. The book is a very pretty one, elegantly got-up on toned paper, excellently printed, and supplied with nice illustrations. It lays under contribution both legend and history ; its pages are en- livened here and there by a dash of poetry, and it professes to give a full, true, and particular account of St. Kilda, past and present. The raison d'e'tre of such a work not being, however, quite apparent, so very much of the volume being made up at second-hand, and so infinitesimal a portion the result of personal observation on the part of the author, whose stay upon the island seems to have been confined to the four hours allowed to the excur- sionists who visited it in the ' Dunara Castle,' we at first inclined to consider it merely a harmless case of book-making ; but the concluding chapter revealed the animus of the whole affair, and we found that all this minute description of the outermost of the Hebrides resolves itself into an attack upon all those who have endeavoured to benefit its condition, and a defence of that merciless system by which so large a proportion of the earn- ings of the population goes into the pockets of the landlord and his factor, for want of the means of carrying on communi- cation with the outer world, or of entering a market where their goods may be submitted to open competition. Mr. Sands, in particular, is the object of much of the author's vituperation, any motive except that of philanthropy being freely attributed to him ; while the statements in his interesting little book, of which we gave a short notice at the time of its appearance, and which has just been republished with additions, are repeatedly called in question, the writer preferring, with Mr. Wilson, the writer in the Ayr Observer, to believe " the corroborative testimony of the clergy, and lawyers, and doctors, and civil engineers, and artists, and merchants, and travellers—the passengers of the Dunara Castle '—who spent that Monday in July last upon the • St. Kilda, Past and Present. By George Seton, Advocate, M.A., Oxon, to London: William Blackwood and Sons. island of St. Kilda," rather than the wider experience of one who lived there, in the first instance, for seven weeks, and in the second for eight months, maintaining the closest intercourse with the people, and their pastor. The minister, Mr. Seton does not scruple to designate by the uncomplimentary appellation of a " domineering fanatic." Of Mr. Sands we know nothing, save as he reveals himself by his work and by his correspondence, but it is evident that he has done good service in bringing before the public the wants of the St. Kildans ; and it is by no means im- possible that even the visit of Miss McLeod, upon which Mr. Seton dwells with so much complaisance, may have had its origin in the agitation thus stirred up, since she seems to be the first representative of the owners of St. Kilda who ever set foot in the island, so let us hope that the results of that visit may not be limited to the good personally effected, but that the grievances under which the inhabitants lie—for that there are grievances, no rational man can doubt—may soon be swept away. Even Mr. Seton reluctantly considers this brave little colony ought not to be utterly cut off from the rest of the world, and says that " a limited amount of postal communication " would be unobjection- able ! And he also confesses that one or two boats, of a suitable and superior construction, with nets and lines for fishing, would be a great boon ; as also that a proper supply of fuel should be provided for this population, which suffers so greatly from the want of it, and he desires to see a systematic course of educa- tion in English given to the St. Kildan children ; but the more pressing need of provision for free-trade he passes over lightly, quoting Mr. Wilson's somewhat unfair observation that if the St. Kildans " wish to trade to Harris, they can trade to Harris," and that "if Mr. Mackenzie, the factor, can bring Dunvegan to St. Kilda, they can carry St. Kilda to Dunvegan," an assertion the fallacy of which must be sufficiently apparent to all who will consider what is the relative position of the two parties. It is comforting to know that there is a spot, however remote, in the Three Kingdoms, more particularly in Scotland, where immorality is so rare as never to be unattended with infamy, and whisky is only employed as a medicine. Indeed, life in St. Kilda is in more respects than one deserving of imita- tion, and the picture of the primitive, hard-working population, so honestly religious, and so little inclined to murmur at a lot which to others seems'so bard, is one which cannot fail to fill the reader with admiration. If Mr. Seton gives us little that is origi- nal in his account of St. Kilda—indeed, it was impossible that he should gather much from a four hours' sojourn there—we can at least be grateful to him for the diligence with which he has collected the opinions of others, and he seems to have consulted and taken extracts from every work which he could lay bold of containing any information upon the subject. Of the scenery he speaks with great enthusiasm, as being impressed with a grandeur entirely its own, the rugged promontories and beetling head- lands being, both as to form and colour, so different from any- thing that one meets with away from the Hebrides. The people, too, although small of stature, he credits with an unusual amount of good-looks, the greater number being fair and rosy-cheeked, while some have olive complexions, with dark hair and eyes. Their dress at present does not seem to differ from that of the sea-faring portion of the Lowland Scotch ; the women wear a short, striped woollen gown, which displays a good deal more than the bare foot and ankle, with a plaid crossed about the shoulders, the head covered with a handkerchief, which is tied under the chin ; while the men adopt trousers and vests of coarse blue cloth, with blanket shirts, and on Sundays a jacket in addition, wearing always a flat blue bonnet. All the clothing is home-made, the wool being supplied by the sheep on the island. The men make the women's garments, as also the brogues which they wear in winter, which are sewn with thongs of raw sheep-skin.
Mr. Seton expends a good deal of indignation upon the " ludi- crous insinuations as to the possibility of famine" in St. Kilda, yet in the early part of his book he repeatedly tells us that the people are often very badly off during the stormy weather, or when the birds have left the coast ; and quoting from Mr. Mackenzie's journal, describes them as literally clearing the whole shore of shell-fish, and of a species of sea-weed (probably laver) growing on the rocks within the sea-mark. Sorrel boiled in water is much used as a green vegetable, as long as it can be had, for it is very difficult to induce even the commonest kinds of cabbage to thrive. Sea-birds fresh and salted, with their eggs when in season, form the staple food of the population, with the addition of occasional fresh mutton and a small quantity of oatmeal. Of fish the St. Kildan's partake but sparingly, having a prejudice against it, but it is believed that the surrounding waters abound in many kinds, so that if fishing and curing were more largely practised, the means of the population would be materially increased. Any one who should teach these people how to preserve for winter use the immense numbers of eggs with which nature provides them would do them a real service, and it is surprising that the idea has not already occurred to some philanthropic mind, for the thing can be done with great ease and at a merely nominal expense. The two special articles of trade in St. Kilda are feathers and oil, the latter obtained from the fulmar petrel, a beautiful bird of the gull tribe, thousands of which are annually salted for winter use. Quoting from Macculloch, Mr. Seton gives an amusing account of the aspect of the island in the feather season :-
" The air," he says, " is full of feathered animals, the sea is covered with them, the houses are ornamented by them, the ground is speckled with them like a flowery meadow in May. The town is paved with feathers, the very dunghills are made of feathers, the ploughed land seems as if it had been sown with feathers, and the inhabitants look as if they had been all tarred and feathered, for their hair is full of feathers, and their clothes are covered with feathers. The women look like feathered Mercuries, for their shoos are made of a gannet's akin ; everything smells of feathers, and the smell pursued us all over the islands,—for the captain concealed a sackful in the cabin."
He follows this up with an interesting description of all the varieties of St. Kildan sea-birds, and gives a special account of the fulmar fowling, in which the women participate, one of the St. Kilda fair sex being able, it is said, to carry as much as two hundredweight of birds. The young girls also carry on puffin- hunting expeditions on their own account, proceeding to Borrera, with two or three men, who land them and assist them to attain a level spot upon the cliffs, and leave them there for about three weeks. They then fearlessly climb by a dangerous path some 500 feet higher, and by the aid of their clever dogs are able to secure great numbers of birds ; also setting snares, by means of which each girl catches several hundred in a day. But the description of the feats of the cragsmen, and the dangers they encounter in pursuit of the feathered visitants to the isle, is the part of Mr. Seton's book which is best worth reading ; and some of these feats he himself witnessed, on the occasion of the memorable brief July visit. The ropes now used are made of Manilla hemp, but until a late period they were formed of three strands of salted cow-bide plaited together, and capable of lasting for two genera- tions, being so valuable as to form the first article which a St. Kildan cragsman bequeathed to his eldest son. It is easy to under- stand that the spectacle of a man hanging 800 feet above the sea, and fearlessly indulging in every species of antic, cannot, to those unaccustomed to it, be a pleasant one to contemplate ; but courage
ranks high among the St. Kildans, and that youth will never ob- tain the hand of any island maiden who fails to accomplish the most daring feat of all,—namely, the ascent of Stack Briorach, which can only be accomplished by sheer climbing, without the
least aid from a rope or anything else.
Although we dislike the tone taken by Mr. Seton in reference to the affairs of the poor islanders, we cannot but wish that his book may have a wide circulation, since the unprejudiced reader will easily judge for himself how matters stand ; and the more attention is drawn to the forlorn little island, the more likelihood is there of its condition being substantially ameliorated.
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