TASTE FOR SWEETS. 35 



St. Kilda is the only place in the whole of 

 Scotland where drunkenness is unknown, although 

 it is said that all the inhabitants keep a supply of 

 whisky by them for use in cases of illness. Such 

 admirable self-restraint is worthy of all praise. They 

 could have had no great acquaintance with intoxi- 

 cating liquors even in Martin's time, when they 

 were much gayer and livelier than they are now. 

 He says : " One of the St. Kilda men, after he 

 had taken a pretty large dose of Aqua Vitce, and 

 was become very heavy with it, as he was falling 

 into a sleep and fancying it to be his last, ex- 

 pressed to his companions the great satisfaction he 

 had in meeting with such an easy passage out of 

 this world. For, said he, it is attended by no kind 

 of pain." 



Henry Brougham says that when he visited St. 

 Kilda in 1799 the people had " an excessive eager- 

 ness for spirits and tobacco." This certainly is not 

 the case now. Only four men besides the minister 

 smoke, and, although I took a supply of tobacco 

 with me on purpose for them, they showed no 

 great eagerness to possess it. Their taste for 

 sweets, especially " bull's-eyes " and peppermint 

 lozenges, was much stronger than for either drink 

 or tobacco. Strangely enough, several comparatively 

 recent writers have stated that they " saw no par- 

 tiality for sugar and sweets " ; but this we certainly 

 observed, the men often holding out their big brown 

 palms along with the children when " sweeties " 

 were being distributed. As a further illustration 

 of the existence of this taste for saccharine dainties, 

 I may also mention that the young women and 

 children fetched us a supply of delicious new milk 

 every evening in return for a handful of sweets 

 all round. So fully does the factor recognise the 



