CATCHING SEA-FOWL. 



323 



stupendous elevation. Nothing, my dear Sir, could 

 be better calculated than such a view to excite the 

 most sublime ideas of the magnificence of nature and 

 of the awful grandeur and majesty of nature's God. 



in those seemingly hraccesiible mansions within 

 the sides of these rocks, fortified by dreadful preci- 

 pices above and below, myriads of sea-fowl are seen 

 sporting and flitting from fragment to fragment. To 

 the spectator from above those that are larger than 

 the eagle appear less than the swallow. Here they 

 might seem in perfect security from the arts and acti- 

 vity of man; but want, the impulse of which is irre- 

 sistible, obliges the peasant k> encounter the most 

 formidable dangers, and excites him to exertions al- 

 most beyond the force of human resolution. When . 

 the precipice is to be assailed from below, the fowlers 

 provide poles of five or six ells in length, with a hook 

 ;d the end ; and fixing one of these iui the girdle of 

 the person who is to ascend, his companions, in a-boaf 

 or on a projection of the cliff*, assist him until he has 

 procured a firm .footing : when, this is accomplished,., 

 he draws up the others with a rope, and another man < 

 is. again forwarded by means of the pole to a higher 

 statipn. Frequently the person in the highest situa- 

 tuoii holds another suspended by a rope, and directs 

 his course to the place where the birds have placed 

 j.cir nests. It unfortunately too often happens that 

 the person who holds the rope has not a footing sutli- 

 luently secure, and in that case both of them-iiievita- 

 bly perish. 



Many precipices, however, are so abrupt as not to 

 be accessible from below. In this case a rope of 

 eighty or a hundred fathoms long is provided, which . 

 cue of the fowlers fastens round his waist and between . 

 his legs in such a manner as to support him in a sit- 

 ting posture. The rope is held by five or six persons 

 at the top, arid it slides upon a piece of wood laid so 

 as to project beyond the precipice.- By means of this 

 apparatus the man is gradually let down until he can 

 attack with success the habitations of the feathered 

 tribes. This operation, however, is not without- its 

 p 6 



