412 BIRD- CA TCHING. 



Almost too small for sight : the murmuring surge, 

 That on the unnumbered idle pebbles chafes, 

 Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more ; 

 Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight 

 Topple down headlong." 



Such is the beautiful description of Dover Cliff by Shake- 

 speare ; but what would he have said, could he have looked 

 down from this precipice in St. Kilda, which is nearly three 

 times higher, and so tremendous, that one who was accustomed 

 to regard such sights with indifference, dared not venture to 

 the edge of it alone 1 But, held by two of the islanders, he 

 looked over into what might be termed a world of rolling mists 

 and contending clouds. As these occasionally broke and dis- 

 persed, the ocean was disclosed below, but at so great a depth 

 that even the roaring of its surf, dashing with fury against the 

 rocks, and rushing with a noise like thunder into the caverns 

 it had formed, was unheard at this stupendous height. The 

 brink was wet and slippery, the rocks perpendicular from their 

 summit to their base ; and yet, upon this treacherous surface, 

 the St. Kilda people approached, and sat upon the extremest 

 verge ; the youngest of them even creeping down a little way 

 from the top, after eggs or birds, building in the higher range, 

 which they take in great numbers, by means of a slender polo 

 like a fishing-rod, at the end of which was fixed a noose of cow- 

 hair, stiffened at one end with the feather of a Solan Goose. 



But these pranks of the young are nothing when compared 

 to the fearful feats of the older and more experienced practi- 

 tioners. Several ropes of hide and hair are first tied together 

 to increase the depth of his descent. One extremity of these 

 ropes, so connected, is of hide, and the end is fastened, like a 

 girdle, round his waist. The other extremity is then let down 

 the precipice, to a considerable depth, by the adventurer him- 

 self, standing at the edge : when, giving the middle of the rope 

 to a single man, he descends, always holding by one part of 

 the rope, as he lets himself down by the other, and supported 

 from falling only by the man above, who has no part of the 

 rope fastened to him, but holds it merely in his hands, and some- 

 times supports his comrade by one hand alone, looking at the 



