AUGUST. 341 



crumbling rocks awful as those that shadow Llyn Cae, 

 or seem to tremble in air, inaccessible to the most 

 daring foot, about the chapel of St. G-owan's on the 

 coast of Pembroke.* There, as we threaded a laby- 

 rinth .of rocks over narrow ridges and slippery paths 

 still growing steeper and more abrupt, where the lone 

 Samphiret hangs over frightful abysses, the Sea Cha- 

 momile (AntJiemis inaritima) throws its silver star on 

 the slippery edge of dismal cauldrons where the sea 

 shrieks out of sight in chorus with the fiend-like yells 

 of congregated sea-fowl of various species or the 

 Samphire-leaved Plea-bane (Inula critlimoides) crests 

 the crumbling rock with a crown of gold I should 

 still advance to some point where an arch (such as 

 lately met my view on the "Worms-Head promontory), 



* See the annexed woodcut, for a representation of the singular isolated 

 craggy peak in the same vicinity, with the boiling ocean at its base, which 

 is adorned with numerous tufts of the velvet-leaved Sea-Mallow. 



t The Samphire (Crithmum maritimurn), is remarkable in its maritime 

 habitat always on rocks overhanging the sea, yet generally some thirty 

 or forty feet above the boiling surge, so that it is often very difficult for 

 the botanist to scale the cliffs high enough to obtain it. Its pale succulent 

 leaves make an aromatic pickle formerly so highly prized as to induce 

 cliff-men to make a "fearful trade" of its collection : 

 " Nor untrembling: canst thou see 

 How from a craggy rock, whose prominence 

 Half overshades the ocean, hardy men 

 Fearless of rending winds and dashing waves, 

 Cut samphire, to excite the squeamish gust 

 Of pamper'd luxury." phillips's Cider. 



Samphire or sampire (probably a corruption of Saint Pierre, to whom 

 this plant was dedicated, perhaps from its growing constantly on rocks), 

 forms, as Dr. BROMFIELD has remarked in the Phytulogist, a yearly expor- 

 tation from the Isle of Wight for pickling. " The plant is collected, at 

 great personal risk, by people called cliffsmen, who used to pay an annual 

 tribute (now remitted) to the lord of the manor of Freshwater, for the 

 privilege of taking both this and the eggs of sea-fowl, that breed in vast 

 numbers in the stupendous chalk cliffs, which rise, like impregnable ram- 

 parts, to the height of 600 feet, at the extreme south-west corner of the 

 Isle of Wight." 



