Often
when Michael has been out weeding potatoes for eight or nine hours
without food, he comes in and eats a few slices of home-made bread,
and then he is ready to go out with me and wander for hours about
the island.
They use no animal food except a little bacon and salt fish. The old
woman says she would be very ill if she ate fresh meat.
Some years ago, before tea, sugar, and flour had come into general
use, salt fish was much more the staple article of diet than at
present, and, I am told, skin diseases were very common, though they
are now rare on the islands.
No one who has not lived for weeks among these grey clouds and seas
can realise the joy with which the eye rests on the red dresses of
the women, especially when a number of them are to be found
together, as happened early this morning.
I heard that the young cattle were to be shipped for a fair on the
mainland, which is to take place in a few days, and I went down on
the pier, a little after dawn, to watch them.
