With nature and a camera

Chapter I. St Kilda and its people

The Soa sheep

I could not get any trustworthy information as to the number of sheep and cattle owned by the members of the little island commonwealth, as it was, or was fancied to be, in their interest to conceal the exact figures from the factor. I should say from what I saw whilst on Soa, Borrera, and all over St Kilda, that a thousand sheep and from twenty-five to thirty head of cattle would be a fairly correct estimate.

They make cheese from a mixture of cows' and ewes' milk; but I must confess that it was to me poor, tasteless stuff, lacking salt or flavour.

Soa lamb

On Soa exclusively is to be found a flock of from two to three hundred peculiar little brown sheep, supposed to be descendants of a few individuals left upon the island by Vikings who called to renew their supply of fresh water. These sheep, like those of Iceland, which they are said to resemble closely, are liable to produce an additional pair of horns, although I failed to discover any evidence of the fact when I examined the flock through my binoculars. They are absolutely wild, and the St Kildans have a particularly primitive and, I might add, extravagant method of capturing them which I had the good fortune to see in operation. A sick man had expressed a fancy for some broth made from a piece of Soa lamb, and, as we were going to work the island with camera and note-book, we took a dog or two in the boat with us. These dogs had their fangs broken, and by the aid of their barefooted masters, who sprang from rock to rock with great nimbleness and not a little excitement, literally ran down one of the timid creatures. As the sheep raced madly round the little island, they came close past where I stood, and the way they bounded from crag to crag, and skipped in single file along dangerous ledges, was simply astonishing.

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My brother set up his camera and tried to photograph them as they passed him in full career, but the comparative slowness of his apparatus, an instantaneous shutter, and the great speed at which the animals were travelling, produced nothing but elongated marks of confusion against the great grey rocks on the negative. He did, however, succeed in making a picture of a lamb caught by one of the dogs and held until its master came upon the scene. This barbarous method of catching the sheep invariably ends in some of the terrified creatures going over the cliffs and being swept away by the fierce tides flowing in those quarters. The factor told me that he had volunteered to supply the people with nets, in order that they might catch the sheep with more humanity and less waste of life, but his offer was declined. They preferred the good old methods that supplied plenty of danger and excitement - two forms of entertainment very dear to the impulsive Celtic heart.