With Nature and a Camera: Being the Adventures and Observations of a Field Naturalist and an Animal Photographer

a CAMERAWITH NATURE and

I. CHAPTER

ST. KILDA AND ITS PEOPLE.

A FTER having exploited many of the favourite -^-^ sea-bird breeding stations on the coasts of England, Scotland, and Ireland, we were very desirous of an opj^ortunity of visiting the paradise of British ornithologists, and accordingly made arrangements as far back as Christmas, 1895, to accompany (jur friend, Mr. John Mackenzie, jun., on his annual visit as factor to St. Kilda.

We arrived in Glasgow early on the morning of June lltli, 1896, and after getting our luggage on board the Dimara Castle, we went in search of a supply of tinned provisions for ourselves and a quantity of sweets and tobacco for the natives.

During the afternoon we were joined by our friend, Mr. John Young, and had a telegram wishing us success from the veteran naturalist of the North—Mr. Harvie-Brown. As soon as the Avindlass had ceased to rattle and the last bag of meal was aboard, we dropped down the Clyde and steamed away to the North. The following day was spent in discharging cargo at various Hebridean islands, catching flounders, and

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speculating u])()n our cliances of fctcliing St. Kilda on the morrow. As an instance of the weather-wisdom of the natives of the Western Isles, I think it worth while to record the })r()phecy of a shrewd old smi- man—an inhabitant of Loch Boisdale—at down on the twelfth. He said that on the following day we should have a strong breeze from the southeast in the morning, a shower about dinner-time, and a south-westerly wind with sunshine in the afternoon. Early on the morning of the thirteenth we arrived at weird and lonely Obbe, our last calling place before attempting to breast the rolling waves of the Atlantic, and carry the hrst news of the doings of the outer world during the year of Grace eighteen hundred and ninety-six to the isolated folks living

"Where the northern l)ill()\v.s in thunder roar

And dash themselves to spray on Hirta's lonely shore."

Our captain very much doubted whether we should be able to land at St. Kilda on account of a stiff breeze which was blowing from the ver}- worst of all possible jjoints of the compass, viz. the south-east. When the wind is in this quarter it fills Village only })lace in which a Bay—the shij) can find fearful seas that shelter—with such it is exceedingly dangerous to enter.

The official jjilot, a wrinkle-visaged, weather-beaten old man, who came al)oard at this place, was, however, like the seer of Loch Hoisdale, liojje-ful of an earl}' change in Ihe wcatlu'r, and advised a liial. Whilst landing two or three passengers, a friend of mine showed me a small, wliitewashed, stone cairn, built upon a I'ock for the guidance of

navigators, on the top of which a pair of great Black-Backed Gulls had made their nest and laid three eggs the previous year.

When we got clear of the Hebrides, and were fairly launched upon the bosom of the mighty Atlantic, the waves l^egan to make themselves felt, and to render the after -deck uninhabitable except for such as could don oilskins. By-and-by the Hiaskers loomed black and weird on our port. visited in OctoberWe were told that these rocks are by fishermen in order to kill Seals and extract the oil from their bodies. Towards noon the weather thickened consider-ablv, and a drizzling- rain connnenced to fall. The steamer was now rolling and pitching to such an extent that most of her passengers lost all interest in wallowing Porpoises and plunging Gannets, and experienced those unpleasant sensations which for a time rob all natural (jbjects of their charm. When we must Imve been quite twenty miles away from St. Kilda, I noticed a couple of dead Kittiwakes float past the ship, and directly afterwards my friend Mackenzie pointed out a Fulmar Petrel flying along on our starboard. The bird is easily distinguished from the Gulls hy its astcmish-ingly graceful gliding fliglit. It seems literally to slide over the crests and through the hollows between the waves. I many times thought that the curling crest of a breaker must overwhelm one that was flying towards it; but the billow was topped without a wing flap, and with the utmost grace and ease. Speculation was rife amongst such of the passengers as were well enough to be on deck as to the distance and direction of our goal. I knev/ that

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we were not many miles from it, and that we were travelling in the right direction, because of two encouraging signs—bird-life was increasing: and nearly all the companies of Puffins, Guillemots, and Razorbills astir were heading straight in the same direction as we were steaming.

A little after noon the wind began to veer round to the south-west, and by two o'clock it was quite fair, and the clouds commenced to lift, when a cry went up of “Land ahead!”

ST. KILDA VILLAGE.

The sight was subHiiie. In front of us hxnnecl the gigantic rock, with its sunnnit buried in white mists, and its base surrounded l)y a fringe of foam left Ijy the broken billows.

As we passed Rock Lavenish the ship got the full benefit of wind and tide on her port, and, in consequence, rolled fearfully. Her decks were often at such an acute angle that the sailors themselves were obliged to hold on to whatsoever stable article lay within reach. Xo sooner, however, had we got inside Village Bay than the sea became almost as smooth as a mill-pond, and everybody was on deck, gazing intently at the weird scene. The sombre grandeur of the place was as awe-inspiring as the most dreadful page in Dante or Milton, and required the pencil of a Dore to do justice to its sublimity. The booming of the tide in the caves that run beneath the Doon sounded like the growl of chained monsters that had made a meal of the men and women who had once lived in the straggling line of primitive-looking dwellings standing at the foot of steep Conagher without a sign of life near them. During the spring a bottle had been })icked up somewhere amongst the Western Isles with a letter in it, purporting to have been sent from 8t. Kilda, with the information that a Spanish ship had been lost there during the winter, and that sixteen rescued sailors were waiting to be taken off. A couple of Glasgow pressmen had accompanied us, and endured all sorts of hardships and discomforts that the dull work-a-day world might enjoy reading of the adventures and hairbreadtli escapes of the survivors. I observed them wistfully scanning the shore in search of some evidence of the castaways, and felt genuinelv sorry for their disappointment

on discovering that the whole business was a cruel hoax.

The St. Kildans had no knowledge of the date of our coming, and the dogs, numbering between thirty and forty, were the first to discover our presence in the bay and tear pell-mell down to the water's edge. The dogs of Hirta—which is the Gaelic name of St. Kilda—are a distinct feature of the place, and whenever a boat is being launched or hauled in there they all are congregated at the water's edge, engaged in furious barking, which generally ends in a fight, and a bundle of three or four, closely locked together, rolling into the sea.

As nobody was to be seen, our captain blew the ship's whistle, but although he succeeded in making a prodigious din which echoed and re-echoed amongst the crags, causing the sheep to scamper away up the steep hill-sides, he produced not a sign of human life on the place. After waiting a few minutes, he sent forth another loud blast, which frightened the Kittiwakes off their nests and sent them wheeling like a little snow-cloud across the bay. In a while, a small boy, who was evidently more curious or energetic than the rest of the population, came running down to the shore to gaze at us. Nearly every writer who has visited St. Kilda has noted this seeming indifference of the natives to the arrival of strangers, and commented upon it. I think that the clean, shining faces, and smooth, glistening hair of the women, and general Sunday appearance of the men, afford an explanation. They are caught in what they consider an unpresentable state, and the time taken up between the arrival of a boat in the bay and the putting off of the natives is occupied in washing and tidying themselves up a bit.

ST. KILDANS LANDING STORES.

By-ancl-by a boat put off and came along-side. I was particularly anxious to hear the tirst words of salutation from men who, though actually living within the confines of the British Isles, are in reality more out of touch with their country than the natives of Vancouver Island or Timbuctoo. As I could not get on deck in time, I popped my head out of a port-hole, and was startled to hear the minister wisli everybody "A happy new year."

When we got ashore, we found most of the women and children had come down to the place of landing with great checked handkerchiefs full of birds' eggs, chiefly those of Guillemots and Razorbills, for which they found a ready sale at a penny a piece amongst the passengers and crew.

The first two things which struck me upon landing at St. Kilda were the apparent dearth of sea-bird life and the joyous songs of the AVrens.

We climbed to the empty cottage in which we were to stay, and after sweeping out the plaster that had fallen off the walls during the preceding twelve months and lighting a fire on a grateless hearth, we began to set things to rights. T\q place being half buried in the l)ase of a steej) hill called Oisaval was fearfully damp, and when my brother, with the instinct of the photographer, commenced to j)ro\vl round in search of a "dark" room, the boards were in such a rotten condition on the ground floor that he fell through.