ST. KILDA FROM WITHOUT 193 



Bay were little more than a third of the average catch 

 of the last eight years, and less than a quarter of the 

 catch of 1885. In Stornoway, only a few miles to the 

 northwards, the take was almost unprecedented. 



A thousand girls, imported by the curers from Yar- 

 mouth, Grimsby, and other southern ports, engaged for 

 the season at 16s. a week fish, or no fish with a free 

 passage from and to their homes, were busily employed 

 for weeks cleaning the fish, and though the work was 

 over before our return, the air within a circle of half a 

 mile of the town was still heavy with the faint oily 

 smell of herrings. 



Our steamer, which carried also its full contingent of 

 fishermen and girls, sailed at midnight. By noon the 

 following day, after a bath and breakfast at Strome, we 

 were rocking along the Highland line, pitching and 

 tossing in a manner which would scarcely have 

 imperilled the reputation of the Jackal as the liveliest 

 sea-boat in Her Majesty's Navy. 



The hills and woods in the soft monotonous green of 

 early summer looked smaller, but scarcely less beauti- 

 ful, than in the reds and golds of autumn more familiar 

 to southerners. Brown-headed Gulls flew peacefully 

 over the lochs, and every now and then a Heron lifted 

 a long stiff neck from a reed-bed without troubling 

 himself to rise. Once as we rounded a corner we came 

 suddenly upon two fine stags within a hundred yards of 

 the wire fence which shut off the line. They lifted 

 their heads for a moment in perfect unconcern, and 

 before we were out of sight were browsing again ; the 



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