BEACH BOULDERS. 21 



heather, which yields and yet sustains, with the elas- 

 ticity of a hair mattress ! The warm sun pours down 

 on you, it is true, but the cool breeze plays about 

 your face and tempers the ray ; and as you gaze up- 

 ward into the unfathomable sky, and feel its pure 

 cloudless azure penetrate your soul, and inhale the 

 aromatic odour of the opening buds and the mingled 

 perfume of a thousand humble flowers around, you 

 fancy, for the time at least, that no couch in the 

 world could yield you so refreshing or so delightful a 

 repose. 



Hereabouts we obtained a view of the beach far 

 below, covered with huge rounded boulders of granite, 

 all invested with a coating of green seaweed ; for the 

 tide was now at its lowest. The eye, roaming over 

 the intermediate slope of fern, so feebly appreciated 

 the distance, that it seemed an easy matter to run to 

 its edge, and then scramble down the face of the per- 

 pendicular cliff, which appeared only a few yards high. 

 The boulders upon the beach, too, appeared not too 

 large or weighty to be turned over by hand, and I 

 was actually meditating an attempt to explore the 

 inviting locality, in hopes of finding many Annelides 

 and Crustacea under those stones. But our more 

 experienced friend assured us that those green-clad 

 boulders were masses of many tons' weight ; that the 

 cliffs were from fifty to a hundred feet high, and so 

 inaccessible that it would be utterly impossible to 

 ascend or descend them unassisted. " Not long ago," 



