ti08 THF FEAThKRED TKIBKS. 



With sparing temperance at the needtul time 

 They drain the scented spring ; or, liunger-prest, 

 Along the Atlantic rock undieading- climb, 

 And of its eggs despoil the solan's nest. 

 Thus blest in primal innocence they live. 

 Sufficed and happy with that frugal fare, 

 Which tasteful toil and hourly danger give. 

 Hard is their shallow soil, and bleak and bare ; 

 Nor ever vernal bcc was heard to murmur there.' " * 



The following vivid sketch is from the pen of the same writer : — " While bearing 

 towards the appointed place of rendezvous in the cutter, we enjoyed some splendid 

 tacking off and on the island, beholding from various points its vast and wave-worn 

 caverns filled with the murmuring sea — its deep, dark, rocky battlements — and, over all, 

 the cloud-capped summits of the hoaiy Connagher, the highest mountain of St. Kilda. 

 As we approached a stupendous precipice we could see the people perched like jackdaws 

 along its edge, and that we might be as near as possible to the scene of action, we got 

 into the small-boat, and rowed (minister and all) towards the mural shore. It was almost 

 fearful to behold it hanging in such huge and ponderous masses overhead : — 



' Cliffs of darkness, caves of wonder. 

 Echoing the Atlantic's thunder! ' 



" We then stood still upon our oars, and the minister rose and waved his hat. 

 •Suddenly we could hear in the air above us a faint huzzaing sound, and at the same 

 instant three or four men, from different parts of the cliff, threw themselves into the air, 

 and darted some distance downwards, just as spiders drop from the top of a wall. They 

 then swung and capered along the face of the preeijnce, bounding off at intervals by 

 striking their feet against it, and springing from side to side with as much fearless ease 

 and agility as if they were so many schoolboys exercising in a swing a few feet o\cr a 

 soft and balmy clover-field. Now tliey were, probably, not less than 700 feet above the 

 sea, and the clift' was not only perpendicular in its upper portion, but as it descended it 

 curved backwards as it were, forming a huge rugged hollow portion, eaten into by the 

 angry lashing of the almost ceaseless waves. In this manner, sliouting and dancing, they 

 descended a long way towards us, though still suspended at a vast height in the air, for it 

 would probably have taken all their cordage joined together to have reached the sea. A 

 great mass of the central portion of the precipice was smoother than the wall of a well- 

 built house, and it was this portion especially which was not only perpendicular but had 

 its basement arched inwards into an enormous wave-worn grotto, so that any one falling 

 from the summit would drop at once sheer into the sea. 



" It was on this the smoother portion of the perpendicular mountain that one or two of 

 the cragsmen chiefly displayed their extraordinary powers, because, as there was notliing 

 to interrupt either the rapid descent of the rope, or its lateral movement, or their own 

 outward bounds, we could sec them sometimes swinging to and fro after the manner of a 

 pendulum, or dancing in tlie air with a convulsive motion of the legs and arms 

 (presenting a painful resemblance to men hanging in tlio agonies of death), or tripping 

 a more light fantastic toe by means of a rapid and vigorous action of the feet against the 

 perpendictdar surface of the rock. These men merely capered for our amusement, but 

 caught no birds ; for such was in fact the adamantine smoothness of the surface, that not 

 even a winged inhabitant of the air could have found rest for the sole of its foot. But 

 on cither side tlie precipice, though (■(lually steep, was more rugged, and there we could 

 perceive that the cwgsmen, having eacli a rojjc securely looped beneath liis arms, rested 

 occusionally upon his toes, or even crawled, with a spider- Like motion, along projecting 



• CoIlin»' " Ode oil tlic I'opular Superstitions of tll« Highlands." 



