Thomas Alfred Coward

“ The fishermen and farmers of Bardsey, though so few in number, have no communistic "parliament" like the crofters of St. Kilda; every man is independent. As sailors and fishermen, too, they are far ahead of the St. Kildians, and are out in all weathers to visit lobster-pots and long lines, often starting at night; "there is plenty of time to sleep in winter," our host explained.
We may divide Bardsey roughly into a cultivated and uncultivated portion, though mountain sheep graze over the rocky upland which makes the island so conspicuous from the towns in Cardigan Bay. ”

“ When the lighthouse was built and the present farms replaced the older dwellings, the bones of hundreds of "saints" were discovered and reinterred. Coins, gold in some instances, were also brought to light, for the pilgrims did not always come empty-handed; "the road to heaven and the gate to paradise," as the bards called it, was worthy of toll. Twenty thousand may be far above the mark; one cynic says "it would be much more facile to find graves in Bardsey for so many saints, than saints for so many graves." But at Mecca all are saints ”

“ These are the pilgrims' wells, two deep holes in the rock, always filled with not overclean water; in the old days, tradition says, it was here the pilgrims went to wash and shave.
Herring-gulls, in a huge colony, nest along the top of the cliffs on the eastern side of the island; their nests containing eggs or grey-downed young were placed even on the narrow sheep-track which runs between the actual rocks and the slippery slope above. A pair of greater black-backs nest amongst them, and oyster-catchers, by their excitement, proved that they, too, were interested in young. ”

“ The shearwater, according to popular ideas, cannot rise from the ground without difficulty; it is true that they do not stand upright, in the position in which they are often depicted and always stuffed, but resting on the tarsus and with breast well down the bird spread its long wings, flopped down the slope, and in a few seconds was clear of the cliff. ”

“ This island, either from the wholesomeness of its climate, owing to its vicinity to Ireland, or rather from some miracle obtained by the merits of the saints, has this wonderful peculiarity, that the oldest people die first, because diseases are uncommon, and scarcely any die except from extreme old age. ”

“ Doubtless when the population was so extensive sea-fowl were much in request. Even to-day the shearwater is relished on some of the Scottish islands, and, as was the case with the puffin, a considerable business was done in "pickled" shearwater. The birds were salted, packed in barrels, and exported for inland consnmption. There is no record of an export trade from Bardsey, though, not so very long ago, puffins were shipped from Puffin Island. We were advised to take food with us, in case we did not wish to live on sea-fowl; we ignored the advice, and found abundance ”

“ The gulls were jealous of the prey and swooped again and again, but the angry seal snapped at them when they came too near, and once, springing high out of the water, nearly caught a bird.
Rabbits occur on the mountain, and, when not shot down, in the fields below. In the shallow burrows laboriously worked in the rocky ground there are no puffins, but there are Manx shearwaters. There are not, however, rabbit-burrows enough for the shear-water colony, and by far the greater number of the birds lay their single white egg in some deep crack or hole amongst the rocks. ”

“ The cattle, mostly black, occupy some fields and are milked in the fields; other land is under crops. The grating song of the corncrake resounded from all the fields of long grass, for this bird is an abundant inhabitant of the lower land. A few stunted thorns barely manage to top the wind-swept banks, and brambles grow on the sheltered sides ”