At a later period in the season they go and get the young birds, and then they have often desperate battles with the old ones, who will not give up fighting for their offspring till their necks are broken, or their brains knocked out with a club. Where the cliffs are not accessible from the top, they go round the bottom in boats, and show a wonderful agility and daring in scaling the most terrible precipices. In summer they get the eggs and the fresh meat of the young birds, which they also salt for the winter. The feathers form their chief article of export, besides dried and salted codfish, and with these they procure their few necessaries and luxuries, consisting principally of clothing, tobacco and snuff, spirits, fish-hooks and lines, and salt. As there is no peat on these islands, nor dried fish-bones in sufficient quantity, they also make use of the tough old sea-birds as fuel. For this purpose they split them open, and dry them on the rocks. The Westmans form a separate Syssel, or county, and they have a church, and usually two clergymen. Their church was rebuilt of stone, at the expense of the Danish Government, in 1774, and is said to be one of the best in Iceland. Unfortunately the two clergymen to whom the spiritual care of the islanders is confided seem to have but a very indifferent flock, for their neighbors on the mainland give rather a bad character to the inhabitants of Heimaey, describing them as great sluggards and drunkards. The population, which was formerly more considerable, amounts to about 200 souls, but even this is more than might be expected from the dreadful mortality which reigns among the children. The eggs and the oily flesh of sea-birds furnish a miserable food for infants, particularly when weaned, as is here customary, at a very early age; but the poor islanders have nothing else to give them, except some fish, and a very insufficient quantity of cow’s or sheep’s milk. This unhealthy diet, along with the boisterous air, gives rise to an incurable infantile disease, called Ginklofi (_tetanus_). Its first symptoms are squinting and rolling of the eyes, the muscles of the back are seized with incipient cramps and become stiff. After a day or two lock-jaw takes place, the back is bent like a bow, either backward or forward. The lock-jaw prevents swallowing, and the cramps become more frequent and prolonged until death closes the scene. The same disease is said to decimate the children on St. Kilda in consequence of a similar mode of life. The only means of preserving the infants of Heimaey from the Ginklofi, is to send them as soon as possible to the mainland to be reared, and thus a long continuance of bad weather is a death-warrant to many. Who would suppose that the Westman Islanders, doubly guarded by their poverty and almost inaccessible cliffs, could ever have become the prey of freebooters? and yet they have been twice attacked and pillaged, and well-nigh exterminated by sea-rovers.