Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

170 ST. KILDA,
The visits of strangers are few and rare; and every
avatar of this nature was well remembered. He that has
no other means of clambering up to the temple of fame,
may come to St. Kilda: he will assuredly be remembered
in its archives; and some future Martin or Macaulay
shall record him in calf well bound, as I myself trust to
be recorded, for no good, by some one who may dis-
cover that Conochan is higher or lower than I found
it, or that the tails of the sheep are not two but three
inches long.
My progress, as Queen Elizabeth called it, through
the island, was attended by all the male population
down to the age of six. You have seen a Jack Pudding
at a country fair followed by a rabble of boys; but here
it was all in kindness, as of people " that loved too
well ;" for if their curiosity was great, their civility and
good humour were still greater. But when I placed the
mountain barometer on the top of Conochan, splendid in
all its polished brass, the presence of Mary Tofts in the
very act could not have excited more astonishment. I left
it to my Highland interpreter to explain the nature and
object of this incantation ; and have little doubt that it
will be remembered for generations. This point is not a
mountain, as my predecessors have called it, but merely
the summit of the uneven ridge which forms the island.
I found the height to be 1380 feet, which is therefore
the greatest elevation of St, Kilda. Martin is not far
from the mark when he calls it 200 fathoms; but Mac-
aulay, who appears to have determined to write a book
without materials, calls it the " TenerifFe of Britain," and
makes it 5400 feet, " 900 fathoms." If he ever did see
it, we may know how to estimate the value of his obser-
vations on things that admit neither of weight nor mea-
sure :
" So much for Buckingham."