40 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



and the St. Kildans have a particularly primitive 

 and, I might add, extravagant method of capturing 

 them which I had the good fortune to see in opera- 

 tion. A sick man had expressed a fancy for some 

 broth made from a piece of Soa lamb, and, as we 

 were going to work the island with camera and 

 note-book, we took a dog or two in the boat with 

 us. These dogs had their fangs broken, and by 

 the aid of their barefooted masters, who sprang 

 from rock to rock with great nimbleness and not 

 a little excitement, literally ran down one of the 

 timid creatures. As the sheep raced madly round 

 the little island, they came close past where I stood, 

 and the way they bounded from crag to crag, and 

 skipped in single file along dangerous ledges, was 

 simply astonishing. 



My brother set up his camera and tried to 

 photograph them as they passed him in full career, 

 but the comparative slowness of his apparatus, an 

 instantaneous shutter, and the great speed at which 

 the animals were travelling, produced nothing but 

 elongated marks of confusion against the great 

 grey rocks on the negative. He did, however, 

 succeed in making a picture of a lamb caught by 

 one of the dogs and held until its master came 

 upon the scene. This barbarous method of catch- 

 ing the sheep invariably ends in some of the 

 terrified creatures going over the cliffs and being 

 swept away by the fierce tides flowing in those 

 quarters. The factor told me that he had volun- 

 teered to supply the people with nets, in order that 

 they might catch the sheep with more humanity 

 and less waste of life, but his offer was declined. 

 They preferred the good old methods that supplied 

 plenty of danger and excitement two forms of enter- 

 tainment very dear to the impulsive Celtic heart. 



