With nature and a camera

Chapter III. The birds and fowlers of St Kilda (continued)

An amusing incident

In writing of the former island, Martin mentions an amusing incident which happened there two years prior to his visit: "There was a cock-boat came from a ship for water, being favoured by a perfect calm; the men discerned a prodigious number of eggs upon the rocks which tempted them to venture near the place, and at last obtained a competent number of them; one of the seamen was industrious enough to put them into his breeches, which he took off for the purpose. Some of the inhabitants of St Kilda who happened to be in the isle that day were spectators of the diversion, and were offended at it being done without their consent; they therefore devised an expedient which at once robbed the seamen of their eggs and the breeches. 'Twas thus: they found a few loose stones in the superficies of the rock, some of which they let fall down perpendicularly above the seamen, the terror of which obliged them quickly to remove, abandoning both breeches and eggs for their safety; and the tarpaulin breeches were no small ornament in a place where all wore girded plaids."

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Of the skill and daring of the St Kildans as cragsmen some opinion may be formed when it is stated that they climb the tallest of the rock-stacks (Biorrach) shown in the accompanying picture, which has been reproduced from a photograph taken whilst we were on Soa. It is from four to five hundred feet in height, and has to be ascended without the aid of a rope. Biorrach is the most difficult rock-stack to scale in the whole of the St Kilda group, and was in former times one of the tests of a man's nerve when he offered himself as a candidate for the coveted fold of matrimonial bliss.

A few years ago a couple of fowlers climbed it for the small reward of a quid of tobacco.

Accidents do not often happen nowadays; but to judge from Sir Robert Moray they must have been of somewhat frequent occurrence in former times, for he says that a St Kildan was rarely known to die in his bed, being either drowned or having his neck broken by a fall over the cliffs.

The decrease in the death-rate from accidents is no doubt due to the exercise of greater care whilst climbing. My brother went out one afternoon along with one of the young men in order to photograph a Fulmar's nest and egg, and descended such an awkward cliff that the St Kildan never expected to see him come up alive again, and said that if the men had been there they would not have allowed him to go down such a place without a rope.

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Stack Biorrach