46 WITH NATUBE AND A CAMERA. 



photogTaphecl side by side with my owii in order 

 to show the difference. 



From j\Iartin's time down to quite recently, 

 according to the testimony of various writers, the 

 fair-complexioned members of the community appear 

 to have been in the majority, but the dark ones 

 now have the ascendancy in point of numbers. 



Their fuel consists of turf stripped from the 

 liill sides, and stored in the numerous cleits which 

 are dotted about all over the place like mere heaps 

 of stones carelessly thrown togetlier and surmounted 

 by a few sods. The entrance to nearly all these 

 curious structures is barred by half-a-dozen stones 

 r(nighly piled one upon another, but some of the 

 largest and best have wooden doors to them, as 

 shown in our illustration. The object propping the 

 door up is the jawbone of a whale, probably be- 

 longing to a dead leviathan which was seen floating 

 past in 1886 and towed into Village Bay, where it 

 melted so fast in the hot sun that the St. Kildans 

 secured only 150 gallons of its oil. These cleits, 

 which have been estimated to lumiber no less than 

 five thousand individual buildings, are of very 

 simple construction, consisting of two parallel side- 

 walls three or four feet apart and four or five feet 

 in height, with rough lintel stones across the to^), 

 on which is piled a quantity of turf so sloped as 

 to keep out the rain. Tlie Avind rushes through 

 the side-walls at a furious rate — as 1 can testify, 

 having spent a niglit in one — and (h'ies whatever 

 is placed in them. 



Tlie Gulf Stream occasionally takes charge of a 

 plank washed off an Atlantic timber l)oat aiul laiuls 

 it in Village Bay. I saw several hnnps of wood 

 that had conu' asliore in tliis way, but most of it 

 had l^een rendered useless by the burrowings of 



