Editing St Kilda, Scotland (section)

=== Way of life ===
[[File:Ropingpeg.jpg|thumb|St Kildans paid some of their rent by collecting seabirds; roping pegs – one of which can be seen in this photo – enabled them to [[abseiling|abseil]] down to the nests.]]

Most modern commentators feel that the predominant theme of life on St Kilda was isolation. When [[Martin Martin]] visited the islands in 1697,<ref name=Martin/> the only means of making the journey was by open boat, which could take several days and nights of rowing and sailing across the ocean and was next to impossible in autumn and winter. According to a St Kilda diarist writing in 1908, vicious storms could be expected at any time between September and March.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/weatherextremes/2014/08/04/st-kilda-extreme-weather-on-the-edge-of-the-world/|title=St Kilda: Extreme Weather on the Edge of the World|author=James|work=University of Nottingham|date=4 August 2014|access-date=2 January 2017|archive-date=3 January 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170103002713/http://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/weatherextremes/2014/08/04/st-kilda-extreme-weather-on-the-edge-of-the-world/|url-status=live}}</ref> More modern records from the National Trust for Scotland record gales for 75 days a year with peak winds around {{convert |144 |mph|knots|abbr=on}} whilst peak wave heights on the Scottish west coast have been recorded at {{convert|16|m|ft|abbr=on}}.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-30402293|title=Power restored as 'weather bomb' storm subsides|work=BBC Scotland|date=11 December 2014|access-date=2 January 2017|archive-date=31 October 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161031101821/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-30402293|url-status=live}}</ref>

In the mid 18th century the St Kildans are recorded as speaking a "very corrupt dialect of the Galic adulterated with a little mixture of the Norvegian tongue."<ref>{{cite book |author1=Macaulay, Kenneth |title=The history of St. Kilda |date=1764 |pages=214–215 |url=https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_the-history-of-st-kilda_macaulay-kenneth_1764/mode/2up}}</ref>

Separated by distance and weather, the natives knew little of mainland and international politics. After the [[Battle of Culloden]] in 1746, it was rumoured that [[Prince Charles Edward Stuart]] and some of his senior [[Jacobitism|Jacobite]] aides had escaped to St Kilda. An expedition was launched, and in due course British soldiers were ferried ashore to Hirta. They found a deserted village, as the St Kildans, fearing pirates, had fled to caves to the west. When the St Kildans were persuaded to come down, the soldiers discovered that the isolated natives knew nothing of the prince and had never heard of [[George II of Great Britain|King George II]] either.<ref>Steel (1988) page 32.</ref>

Even in the late 19th century, the islanders could communicate with the rest of the world only by lighting a bonfire on the summit of Conachair which would, weather permitting, be visible to those on the isles of Harris and the Uists, or by using the "St Kilda mailboat". This was the invention of [[John Sands (journalist)|John Sands]], who visited in 1877. During his stay, a shipwreck left nine Austrian sailors marooned there, and by February supplies were running low. Sands attached a message to a [[lifebuoy]] salvaged from the ''Peti Dubrovacki'' and threw it into the sea.<ref name=Sands>[http://www.widegrin.com/vicmisc/st_kilda.htm "Life in St. Kilda"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929070713/http://www.widegrin.com/vicmisc/st_kilda.htm |date=29 September 2007 }}, an account by J. Sands in Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Art, 1877. Retrieved 1 April 2007.</ref> Nine days later it was picked up in [[Birsay]], Orkney, and a rescue was arranged. The St Kildans, building on this idea, would fashion a piece of wood into the shape of a boat, attach it to a bladder made of sheepskin, and place in it a small bottle or tin containing a message. Launched when the wind came from the north-west, two-thirds of the messages were later found on the west coast of Scotland or in Norway.<ref>Maclean (1977) pages 136–8.</ref><ref>[http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/keacam/keacam0109.htm "St Kilda mailboat"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070611105325/http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/keacam/keacam0109.htm |date=11 June 2007 }} Glasgow Digital Library. Retrieved 4 March 2008.</ref>
[[File:St Kilda mailboat.jpg|thumb|upright|Launching the "St Kilda mailboat"]]