2 The Bird Life of an Outer Island. [Sess. 



nation of " our " island would disappear with the advent of 

 anything better, anything more suggestive, more reminiscent, 

 of the civilisation we are striving to leave behind, anything 

 more likely to facilitate the progress of the tourist and all 

 such despoilers of Arcadian lands, anything more shattering 

 to that spirit of adventure which lends a new and thrilling 

 colour to every incident, carries your heart high through 

 every diflSculty, mocks at them indeed and hopes for them, 

 which is the very root of your pleasure when you would play 

 the savage. We have traversed that dozen miles of ocean 

 when the air was breathless, and only the long ground-swell 

 bore witness to the mighty pulse of the Atlantic, and our 

 crew toiled for hours at the sweeps. We made the voyage 

 this summer when all the familiar forms of the islands were 

 curtained in mist, and a squally wet breeze freshened out of 

 the north, and our sail was reefed down to a mere rag. In 

 the sounds between the islands great walls of green water 

 rushed in from the west to overwhelm us, but our craft rose 

 on them exultantly, sometimes buried her nose skittishly in 

 the crests and drenched us to the skin, and went canting and 

 reeling and plunging onward like some sentient thing filled 

 with purpose, and carried us safely, as she has ever done, to 

 our destination. 



Eoughly speaking, the island rises in gradual slopes from 

 the east into three hills and then drops sheer down into the 

 Atlantic. Eock practically encircles the whole island except 

 at one point on the eastern side, where a wide sweep of white 

 sand forms, in summer at least, — in winter we were told the 

 big seas carry it away, — the shore of the village bay. The 

 village musters about a score of biggans huddled together in 

 true Hebridean fashion, a few hundred yards from high-water 

 mark, but forming a more picturesque, a more primitive (and 

 Heaven knows ! some of them are primitive enough) scene 

 than any other island clachan I have known. North and 

 south of the bay the cliffs begin, and, gradually rising as they 

 go until they culminate in a magnificent precipice nearly 

 800 feet high, engird the island with iron bulwarks, which 

 the Atlantic and the Minch would fain join forces to 

 demolish. 



From the rational human standpoint, it is probably as 



