Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

182 ST. KILDA.
port to the Long- Island, the mart in which ail their little
commerce centers. Their other exports consist of wool
and feathers; and with these they purchase the few ar-
ticles of dress or furniture which they require.
On approaching- the island, the eye is caught by the
great number of small stone buildings scattered over it,
naturally mistaken for the habitations of the natives.
These are the " pyramids" of Martin, and are used for
saving- all their produce ; their peat, corn, hay, and even
their birds. It is remarkable that this practice should
have been alluded to by Solinus as common in the Western
Islands, and that it should now be entirely unknown
everywhere else. It is well worthy of being imitated on
all the western shore ; where the hay and corn are often
utterly lost, and generally much damaged, by the rains
and by the slovenly method in which the process of har-
vesting is managed. These structures are round or oval
domes resembling ovens, eight or ten feet in diameter and
five or six in height. They are very ingeniously built
by gradually diminishing the courses of dry stone ; afford-
ing free passage to the wind at the sides, while the top
is closed by heavy stones, and further protected from
rain, by a covering of turf. No attempt is made to dry
the grass or corn out of doors ; but when cut they are
thrown loosely into these buildings, and thus secured
from all future risk. It would be a heresy worthy of the
Quemadero, to suppose it possible that Arthur's Oon, the
temple of the god Terminus, the never-to-be-forgotten
cause of antiquarian groans and remonstrance, had been
one of Solinus's ovens; a St. Kilda barn. Yet there is
a most identical and unlucky resemblance between them,
in construction, form, and magnitude ;
and indeed I have
long been inclined to think that this Otho was only a
bad halfpenny. It would be very kind, in the mean time,