THE OANNET. 609 



ledges, and ever and anon we could see them waving a small white fluttering object, 

 which we might have taken for a pocket-handkerchief, had we not been told it was a 

 feathery fulmar. They twisted their nocks, then looped their heads into a little noose or 

 bight of the rope above them, and by the time the men were drawn again to the top of 

 the rock, each carried up a good bundle of birds along with him. Their object, however, 

 was not to collect, but merely to give us a specimen of their mode of doing so, and they 

 would have reaped a much richer harvest had they jjroceeded to actual business. But to 

 see them dangling in the air, like spiders from webs of gossamer, the ropes being 

 scarcely ^^sible, owing to the great height from which they were suspended, was in 

 truth a surprising sight. How one man (for such is the case), himself standing with 

 the points of his toes upon the very verge of a precipice, many hundred feet deep, can 

 with such secure and unerring strength sustain the entire weight of another man bound- 

 ing from point to point below him with irregular aiTd frequent sj^rings, is what a 

 stranger cannot understand, and could scared}' credit without the ' ocular proof.' But 

 we ascertained that there is never more than a single man above, supporting the weight 

 of the one below. Each of these couples has as it were two ropes between them. The 

 rope which the upper man holds in his hands is fastened round the body and beneath the 

 arms of him who descends, while another rope is pressed bj* the foot of the upper man, 

 and is held in the hand of the lower. One woidd think that this kind of cross- working 

 would be apt to pull the upper partner. from the top of the cliff, and that both would be 

 speedily dashed to pieces or drowned among the roaring rocks below ; but it is said that 

 scarcely more than one or two accidents have happened within the memory of the present 

 generation. 



" Not a native of the island can swim — a fact which at first surprised us ; but, ou 

 reflection, it is evident that when any mifortunate catastrophe does take place, no human 

 strength nor skill in any art can save them from destruction. After thus showing off 

 for a sufficient length of time, the rope-dancers were hauled to the top, and made their 

 way upwards almost as rapidlj' as they had descended. We could then also perceive 

 more clearly the uses of the two ropes ; for while the man above drew up one of them, 

 hand over hand, as sailors say (just as in sea-fishing you would draw up a cod or conger- 

 eel at the end of a line), the-man below aided his own ascent by hauling also hand over 

 hand upon the other, which was held by the tenacious foot of his assistant in the higher 

 regions." 



Other details of great and even thrilling interest are thus given by the late Dr. 

 Stanley : " Their great dependence is upon ropes of two sorts ; one made of hides, — the 

 other, of hair of cows' tails, all of the same thickness. The former are the most 

 ancient, and stiU continue in the greatest esteem, as being stronger and less liable to 

 wear away or be cut by rubbing against the sharp edges of rocks. These ropes are of 

 various lengths, from ninety to a hnndred and twent}', and nearly two hundred feet in 

 length, and about three inches in circumference. Those of hide are made of cows' and 

 sheep's hides mixed together. Tlie hide of the sheep, after being cut into narrow slips, 

 is platted over with a broader slip of cow's hide. Two of these are then twisted together; 

 80 that the rope, when untwisted, is found to consist of two parts, and each of these 

 contains a length of sheep-skin covered with cow's hide. For the best, they will ask 

 about thirteen jjence a fathom, at which price they sell them to each other. 



" So valuable are these ropes, that one of them forms the marriage portion of a 

 St. Kilda girl, and, to this secluded people, to whom monied wealth is little known, 

 is an article, on which often life itself, and all its comforts, more or less depends, far 

 beyond gold and jewels. 



" The favourite I'esort for sea-fowl, particularly the oily Fulmars, is a tremendous 

 precipice, about thirteen hundred feet high, formed by the abrupt termination of 



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