ST. KILDA AM) ITS BIItDS. 325 



stone coping, and immediately over this a chain was 

 suspended from the roof, to which the kettle or cooking 

 pan was attached. There was no chimney, but two holes 

 at the top of the stone wall just below the spring of the 

 roof, allowed the smoke to gradually escape after filling the 

 room. The whole place was very dark, and even when 

 one's eyes had got accustomed to the darkness it was 

 difficult to distinguish objects clearly. The walls and 

 every part of the room were begrimed with the dirt and 

 smoke of years, and the whole place was wretched in the 

 extreme. Yet in such places as these all the people lived 

 less than half a century ago. The contrast between the 

 old and the new houses was indeed sufficiently striking, 

 and one could not fail to realise forcibly the kindness and 

 liberality of the then proprietor of the island, who, by 

 giving the people decent dwelling-houses, lifted them out 

 of a condition of semi-barbarism, and placed the elements 

 of civilization within their reach. On the hillside 

 immediately behind the line of houses, an oval space, 

 enclosed by a stone wall, marks the site of the little 

 cemetery, where many generations of St. Kildans lie in 

 their nameless graves, which are marked simply by a rude 

 stone taken from the hillside, without inscription, placed 

 at the head and foot of each. The cemetery is in a very 

 neglected state, the graves being almost hidden by a rank 

 overgrowth of nettles and flags. Tradition has it that 

 this cemetery marks the site of an ancient temple, but the 

 only ground for. this belief that I could discover was, that 

 some large stones, apparently belonging to a building of 

 some size, were said to have been unearthed here in the 

 course of excavations. 



Tsext to the houses, the objects that most arrest the 

 attention of the stranger are a number of little oval stone 

 structures, which are scattered in all directions over the 



