WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



hauled their boats up in one particular spot that 

 the rock is grooved by the grinding of innumerable 

 keel-plates. 



In that chronicler's time there were about eighteen 



horses on the island, but now there is not a single one. 



Two hundred years ago the St. Kildans took 



care to keep their graveyard " perfectly free and 



void of any kind 

 of nastiness " ; 'but 

 now, alas, it is 

 neglected and over- 

 grown with nettles 

 and other noxious 

 weeds, from the 

 midst of which I 

 saw a single head- 

 stone peeping, grey 

 and gaunt, like a 

 weird sentinel over 

 the sleeping dead, 

 who are, after all, 

 in such an utterly 

 out - of - the - world 

 place, only a little 

 more asleep than 

 the poor creatures 

 who linger round them still able to hear the boom 

 of the sea breaking upon the rocks at their feet: 



One of the first things that struck me as peculiar 

 about the St. Kildans was the abnormal size of 

 their ankle joints and the thickness of their insteps. 

 So much was I impressed with this specialised 

 development brought about, no doubt, by long 

 generations of rock and steep-hill climbing that I 

 had the foot of a man, corresponding as nearly as 

 possible in point of size and weight with myself, 



Author's Foot. St. Ktidan't Foot. 



ANKLE DEVELOPMENT. 



