PHOTOGRAPHING IN CLIFFS, ETC. 31 



I know nothing myself of this strange sensation, 

 therefore cannot properly appreciate it, and I am 

 quite sure that my brother is worse off in a supply 

 of weak nerves of this kind than I am. A friend 

 of ours said to me one day, whilst on our way to 

 make a descent over which he considered we were 

 rather light-hearted. " You fellows have to do the 

 work and run the risk, and I've only to sit and 

 look on; but I wish I could view the business with 

 as much equanimity as you appear to do." Prob- 

 ably we do view this kind of work with a certain 

 amount of equanimity, but we never under-estimate 

 its dangers or allow familiarity to breed contempt. 

 We thoroughly recognise that it would be useless 

 to take care after an accident, so we use plenty of 

 it, good reliable tackle and the most capable 

 assistants we can procure, and have in consequence 

 a great deal of confidence. 



In paying out the rope to the descender it is 

 necessary to do so from behind the crowbar, and 

 not to allow it to slip away in jerks, as such a 

 procedure makes it exceedingly unpleasant for the 

 man who is dangling in mid-air fifty or sixty feet 

 below, and might possibly snap an indifferent piece 

 of hemp. 



Where assistance is easily procurable we get a 

 man to signal from some convenient point my 

 brother's requirements by a preconcerted code of 

 arm-movements, somewhat after the manner of 

 railway-carriage shunters; but where it is not, and 



