NORTHERN SCOTLAND. 



349 



cliffs, rising to a height of 1,220 feet, and access is possible only through a cleft in 

 the rocks.* Hirt is undoubtedly the most forsaken place in Europe, and its 

 inhabitants can but rarely see from their prison home the indistinct contours of 

 the nearest abode of man. St. Kilda, which vessels can approach only during the 

 three months of summer, is looked upon even by the inhabitants of the Hebrides 

 as an abode of misery, though, thanks to the tales of fishermen, what they state 

 respecting it is mixed up with much that is fabulous. But the unanimous reports 

 of travellers, confirmed by the register of births and deaths, prove that the 

 nineteen families who inhabit the island are so largely influenced by the lonely life 

 they lead, that the arrival of a vessel with sailors and passengers suffices to 

 produce a general sickness, attended with cold in the head, amongst them. 



Fig. 173.— St. Kilda. 

 Scale 1 : 750,000. 



5 Miles. 



This "eight days' sickness," or "boat cough," is dangerous, more especially 

 in the case of the men, and when imported by a vessel coming from Harris, it 

 not un frequently terminates fatally, f Similarly, on several islands of the Pacific, 

 a single stranger spreads around him an atmosphere of sickness. The handful 

 of people living on St. Kilda have to undergo a hard struggle for existence. The 

 children, before they can be considered safe, have to pass through a succession of fits 

 — caused, in the opinion of medical men, by the peculiar food administered to 

 them, for from the day of their birth they are made to swallow oil taken from 

 the stomach of a petrel mixed with port wine. Out of every nine children born, 



* J. Sands, " Out of the World, or Life in St. Kilda." 



+ John Tklorgan, " Diseases of St. Kilda," British and Foreign Malical Jîeviiiv. 



