Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/55

Rh food with us, in case we did not wish to live on sea-fowl; we ignored the advice, and found abundance; it was a land of home-cured bacon, eggs, milk, fish, lobsters and crabs; vegetables and new potatoes were waiting to be eaten. the gooseberries ripe for pies. We lacked nothing needful.

There was, perhaps is, a king of Bardsey, an hereditary monarch without a constitution. No one disputes his right to the title or to the gilded metal crown adorned with the Newborough arms; no one obeys his commands, for he, wise man, gives no orders. The king, when we saw him, had no heir; indeed there are few children now on the island. "The oldest die first" still; what will happen when the present generation, now well advanced in years, joins the 20,000 which have gone before? When we landed we found few people about, but learnt that they were all up in the mountain, "taking the wools from the sheeps"; when they descended they were all middle-aged folk, the only children were aliens, the family of the light-keepers. 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. The low-lying land to the west of the "mountain" is cut up into fields, bounded by low turf walls, wonderfully cushioned with pink masses of thrift in mid-June when we were there. The cattle, mostly black, occupy some fields and are