Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

ST. KILDA. 189
ter; the upper being fixed on a rude vertical axis of
wood, which passes through the lower one and the floor
of the hut. This rude building of stone and turf, lies on
the edge of a bank, or across some small rivulet, and is
scarcely sufficient to admit a man stooping; the hopper
being suspended from the roof by four strings. The axis,
which is three or four feet long, works on any casual
stone, by means of an iron gudgeon, which is the only
metal work in the whole composition. Into it are driven
the floats, varying from six or eight to eighteen in num-
ber, a foot or two long, and either flat or scooped out
like spoons, so as to catch the stream as it runs past
them. But as the clack of the mill would also set the
tongue loose, by relieving the old ladies from their la-
bour, it is perhaps as well that they should go on sing-
ing the 'Emi^vXtov at their querns till their rents are raised.
As my friends neither brew beer nor distil spirits, here
is another point in which they emulate the Golden Age.
They are content with water, and we felt no inclination
to teach them any sweet vices. The whisky and the
tobacco that we had, would not go far among so many
but those who gained a drink capered and laughed, and
those who got none laughed equally to see their neigh-
bours merry,
I puzzled myself to little purpose about the popula-
tion of St. Kilda, a subject in which greater economists
than myself have sometimes floundered. The Minister
was absent ; and the Minister's wife, having no children,
had never considered this abstruse question. In Martin's
time they amounted to 180, in twenty-seven families;
and, as might be expected, they were then in a state of
great poverty, increased, if we may judge from his
account, by a systematic oppression. The imaginary
harsh conduct of Highland proprietors to their tenants, is
not therefore a new grievance ; as noisy people try now
;