124 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



cragsmen some opinion may be formed when it is 

 stated that they climb the tallest of the rock-stacks 

 (Biorrach) shown in the accompanying picture, which 

 has been reproduced from a photograph taken whilst 

 we were on Soa. It is from four to five hundred 

 feet in height, and has to be ascended without the 

 aid of a rope. Biorrach is the most difficult rock- 

 stack to scale in the whole of the St. Kilda group, 

 and was in former times one of the tests of a man's 

 nerve when he offered himself as a candidate for 

 the coveted fold of matrimonial bliss. 



A few years ago a couple of fowlers climbed it 

 for the small reward of a quid of tobacco. 



Accidents do not often happen nowadays ; but 

 to judge from Sir Robert Moray they must have 

 been of somewhat frequent occurrence in former 

 times, for he says that a St. Kildan was rarely 

 known to die in his bed, being either drowned or 

 having his neck broken by a fall over the cliffs. 



The decrease in the death-rate from accidents is 

 no doubt due to the exercise of greater care whilst 

 climbing. My brother went out one afternoon along 

 with one of the young men in order to photograph 

 a Fulmar's nest and egg, and descended such an 

 awkward cliff that the St. Kildan never expected 

 to see him come up alive again, and said that if the 

 men had been there they would not have allowed 

 him to go down such a place without a rope. 



The fowling-ropes now in use are made of 

 Manilla hemp, but formerly they were of horse- 

 hair, which in Martin's time was protected by a 

 coat of cowhide. I was fortunate enough to 

 secure the last old rope on the island for half- 

 a- crown, and upon inquiry discovered that the 

 hair of which it was composed had cost five 

 shillings per pound, and that the last man in 



