28 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



For nine months in the year the inhabitants of 

 St. Kilda are doomed to an utter ignorance of the 

 doings of the outer world unless some stray fishing 

 smack should, under favourable conditions of wind 

 and tide, venture to drop in and see them. They 

 have, however through the initiative of Mr. John 

 Sands, I believe improved upon poor Lady Grange's 

 method of trying to communicate with friends during 

 her eight weary years of exile in these desolate 

 regions. It is recorded that this unfortunate woman 



ST. KILDA MAILBOAT. 



wrapped up letter after letter with yarn in pieces 

 of cork, and consigned them to the sea in the hope 

 that some day one would be wafted to where some 

 pitying hand would find a means of delivering her 

 from a bondage brought about through some dis- 

 agreement with her husband, Lord Grange, whose 

 friends kidnapped the unhappy lady in 1732, and, 

 after forcibly detaining her on some small Hebridean 

 island a while, conveyed her to St. Kilda, where 

 she is said to have spent a great part of her 

 time in weeping. 



When the natives now desire to send news of 

 any happenings on the island to their friends, they 

 cut a cavity in a solid piece of wood roughly 

 hewn like a boat, and, putting a small canister or 



