CHAPTER VI 

 VOYAGE TO ST. KILDA 



My next experience was what I might almost call " The 

 Voyage to St. Kilda," for so it seemed to me as a boy. 

 The following detailed narrative was written by my dear 

 mother on our return. In that far-off island I found 

 what to me were quite new birds, such as gannets, 

 fulmars, shearwaters, fork-tailed petrels and eider- 

 ducks, specimens of which I was able to shoot with my 

 own little gun. 



" On Monday, the 30th of May, 1853 (having had all 

 our provisions and packages prepared on the Saturday), 

 we were called at three o'clock in the morning with the 

 good news that it was a beautiful day for our start to 

 St. Kilda. Dressing was soon accomplished, and off we 

 set on foot for the quay, about half a mile from the 

 Tigh Dige. The weather did not please me so well as 

 it did my housemaid, for I found on looking on the bay 

 that it was a perfect calm with a sea mist over the Isle 

 of Skye; so, instead of getting into the Jessie, the 

 vessel we had hired for the occasion, we continued in 

 the smaller rowing-boat, proposing that Osgood should 

 shoot and amuse himself in some way. We, for a 

 wonder, could not see any guillemots or cormorants, and 

 then George Ross, the keeper, said spearing flounders 



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