With nature and a camera

Chapter I. St Kilda and its people

Etiquette

The Western Isles form a happy hunting-ground for a number of Jew pedlars, and one of these found his way to St Kilda on the steamer which came to take us off. No sooner had this man opened his bundle of gaudy wares than lie was surrounded by an excited crowd of women and children, who began to handle and examine everything he had. I saw the minister's servant-girl seize a brilliantly-coloured petticoat, and rushing up to her reverend master thrust it in his face with childish glee and beg him to buy it for her. I mention this as evidence of the innocent simplicity of these remote people.

One of the civilities demanded by the etiquette of the place is that you shall shake hands with everybody you come in contact with night and morning. The first thing they ask you in the morning is whether you have had a good sleep. If an answer in the affirmative be given they are satisfied, but if, on the contrary, you have not enjoyed a good night's rest, they follow up their solicitation after your welfare by inquiring whether you have eaten a good breakfast. Should this be the fact, they think you have no serious reason for complaint; but should the contrary be the case, they are alarmed, and show a great deal of natural sympathy.

Although extremely pious and well-behaved, they are deeply interested in the great life and death struggles of the outer world; and one of the first questions they ask, upon being visited by strangers, is whether the Queen is at war with any other country, and, if so, who is getting the best of the conflict. Nothing delights them more (men and women alike) than to hear that the enemy is being smitten hip and thigh.

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For nine months in the year the inhabitants of St Kilda are doomed to an utter ignorance of the doings of the outer world unless some stray fishing smack should, under favourable conditions of wind and tide, venture to drop in and see them. They have, however - through the initiative of Mr John Sands, I believe - improved upon poor Lady Grange's method of trying to communicate with friends during her eight weary years of exile in these desolate regions. It is recorded that this unfortunate woman wrapped up letter after letter with yarn in pieces of cork, and consigned them to the sea in the hope that some day one would be wafted to where some pitying hand would find a means of delivering her from a bondage brought about through some disagreement with her husband, Lord Grange, whose friends kidnapped the unhappy lady in 1732, and, after forcibly detaining her on some small Hebridean island a while, conveyed her to St Kilda, where she is said to have spent a great part of her time in weeping.