With nature and a camera

Chapter I. St Kilda and its people

Nearing St Kilda

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

We arrived in Glasgow early on the morning of June 11th, 1896, and after getting our luggage on board the Dunara 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.

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As soon as the windlass 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 speculating upon our chances of fetching 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 prophecy of a shrewd old man - an inhabitant of Loch Boisdale - at sundown on the twelfth. He said that on the following day we should have a strong breeze from the south-east 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 first 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 billows 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 very worst of all possible points of the compass, viz. the south-east. When the wind is in this quarter it fills Village Bay - the only place in which a ship can find shelter - with such fearful seas that it is exceedingly dangerous to enter.

The official pilot, a wrinkle-visaged, weather-beaten old man, who came aboard at this place, was, however, like the seer of Loch Boisdale, hopeful of an early change in the weather, and advised a trial.

Whilst landing two or three passengers, a friend of mine showed me a small, whitewashed, stone cairn, built upon a rock 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.

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When we got clear of the Hebrides, and were fairly launched upon the bosom of the mighty Atlantic, the waves began 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. We were told that these rocks are visited in October by fishermen in order to kill Seals and extract the oil from their bodies.

Towards noon the weather thickened considerably, and a drizzling rain commenced 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 objects of their charm.

When we must have 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 by it astonishingly graceful gliding flight. 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.

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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 knew that 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!"

The sight was sublime. In front of us loomed the gigantic rock, with its summit buried in white mists, and its base surrounded by a fringe of foam left by the broken billows.

St Kilda village