32 WITH NATURE! AND A CAMERA. 



still retained a delightful aroma of peat smoke when 

 they reached my hands, reminding me forcibly of 

 my stay on the island. 



Martin, in his entertaining account of a visit 

 paid to St. Kilda in 1697, as already mentioned, 

 after praising the good looks of the people, says, 

 " The present generation comes short of the last in 

 strength and longevity. They showed us huge big 

 stones, carried by the fathers of some of the in- 

 habitants now living, any of which is a burthen 

 too heavy for any two of the present inhabitants to 

 raise from the ground, and this change is all within 

 the compass of forty years. But notwithstanding 

 this, anyone inhabiting St. Kilda is always reputed 

 stronger than two of the inhabitants belonging to 

 the Isle of Harris or the adjacent isles." 



Curiously enough, the same pessimistic belief in 

 the physical degeneracy of the human race is rife 

 to-day in many Yorkshire dales, and old men will 

 as evidence of the fact point out huge stones in 

 the remains of ancient dry walls that mark long- 

 forgotten divisions of the land, and say that no 

 man now living could lift them, forgetful of the 

 fact that in all probability they never were lifted, 

 but simply rolled into their present situations 

 over smaller stones placed conveniently for the 

 purpose. 



The same historian whom I have just quoted 

 also recorded the fact that men of Hirta had 

 " generally but very thin beards." They have 

 evidently taken the reproach to heart, for nearly 

 all of them have now thick bushy ones. 



The highest population record of the place 

 known is two hundred souls all told, and the 

 lowest reached, a few years back, sixty. At the 

 time of our visit in the summer of 1896 there 



