320 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



We succeeded in inducing them to allow us to 

 take a photograph of them at work. 



During the winter-time the Atlantic Ocean casts 

 ashore on this island some very useful flotsam and 

 jetsam, which is highly appreciated by these poor 

 crofters, whose lives may not inaptly be described 

 as prolonged periods of monotonous hunger and 

 ease. Last winter the harvest of the sea was 

 a scanty one, and the Elders of the Free Kirk, 

 thinking that they had not been enjoying a fair 

 share of good things from the bountiful deep, offered 

 up some heartfelt prayers that they " would pe 

 plessed wis a wreck, put no man's lives to pe 

 drowned." 



We were anxious to visit the Shiant Islands, a 

 famous group of sea-bird breeding rocks situated in 

 the North Minch, not far from Tarbert Harris ; and as 

 our time was very limited we tried to secure a boat 

 and crew to take us off at night, in order that we 

 might make some photographic studies in the early 

 hours of the morning, and then lie by and let the 

 mail boat for the South pick us up at sea. We 

 experienced great difficulty in finding out anybody 

 who could give us such information as would help 

 us in getting a crew together, owing to the fact that 

 nearly all the male members of the population were 

 away at sea, fishing. We were at length directed to 

 a man who was engaged in digging peats between 

 two huge lumps of rock away up a steep hillside. 

 I explained to him what we wanted, and said that 

 I was prepared to pay for night-work double the 

 amount usually charged by a crew for taking visitors 

 off to the islands during the daytime. He listened 

 with the intent curiosity of a man to whom learning 

 something of other folks 7 business is a real pleasure, 

 but when I asked him what he thought the charge 



