38 LUNDY ISLAND. 



We now approached the north-west point, the very 

 extremity of the island; no slope of earth, but- a wil- 

 derness of huge castellated masses of granite, piled 

 one on another in magnificent confusion. By scram- 

 bling between and over these, we contrived to take a 

 perch, like so many of the tenant-birds themselves, on 

 the very verge of the stony point, whence we could 

 look over on each side, and gaze on the boiling sea at 

 the foot of perpendicular precipices. In truth this 

 was a noble sight ; the point was fringed with great 

 insular rocks, bristling up amidst the sea, of various 

 sizes, and irregular angular shapes, partially or wholly 

 covered by the tide at high water, though now largely 

 exposed. There was a heavy swell from the west- 

 ward, which, coming on in broadly heaving undula- 

 tions, gave the idea of power indeed, but of power in 

 repose ; as when the lion couches in his lair with 

 sheathed talons, and smoothed mane, and half-closed 

 eyes. But no sooner does each broad swell, dark and 

 polished, come into contact with these walls and towers 

 of solid rock, than its aspect is instantly changed. 

 It rears itself in fury, dashes with hoarse roar, and 

 with apparently resistless might, against the oppo- 

 sition, breaks in a cloud of snowy foam, which hides 

 the rocky eminences, and makes us for a moment 

 think the sea has conquered. But the next, the 

 baffled assailant is recoiling in a hundred cascades, 

 or writhing and grovelling in swirls around the feet 

 of those strong pillars, which still stand in their ma- 

 jesty, unmoved, unmovable, ready to receive and to 



