WAE OF THE ELEMENTS. 193 



points, and the brown leprous coating of barnacles with which their lower sides are covered 

 is broadly seen between the swelling seas. 



" Heavily rolls in the long deep swell of the ocean from the south-west ; and as it 

 approaches, with its huge undulations driven up into foaming crests before the howling gale, 

 each mighty wave breasts up against these rocks, as when an army of veteran legions assaults 

 an impregnable fortress. Impregnable, indeed ! for having spent its fury in a rising wall 

 of mingled water and foam, it shoots up perpendicularly to an immense elevation, as if it 

 would scale the heights it could not overthrow, only to be the next moment a broken ruin 

 of water murmuring and shrieking in the moats below. The insular blocks and peaks receive 

 the incoming surge in an overwhelming flood, which immediately, as the spent wave recedes, 

 pours off through the interstices in a hundred beautiful jets and cascades ; while in the 

 narrow straits and passages the rushing sea boils and whirls about in curling sheets of 

 snowy whiteness, curdling the surface ; or where it breaks away, of the most delicate pea- 

 green hue, the tint produced by the bubbles seen through the water as they crowd to the 

 air from the depths where they were formed the evidence of the unseen conflict fiercely 

 raging between earth and sea far below. 



' ' The shrieking gusts, as the gale rises yet higher and more furious, whip off the crests 

 of the breaking billows, and bear the spray like a shower of salt sleet to the height where 

 we stand ; while the foam, as it forms and accumulates around the base of the headland, is 

 seized by the same power in broad masses and carried against the sides of the projecting 

 rocks, flying hither and thither like fleeces of wool, and adhering like so much mortar to 

 the face of the precipice, till it covers great spaces, to the height of many fathoms above 

 the highest range of the tide. The gulls flit wailing through the storm, now breasting the 

 wind, and beating the air with their long wings as they make slow headway ; then yielding 

 the vain essay, they turn and are whirled away, till, recovering themselves, they come up 

 again with a sweep, only to be discomfited. Their white forms, now seen against the leaden- 

 grey sky, now lost amidst the snowy foam, then coming into strong relief against the black 

 rock ; their piping screams now sounding close against the ear, then blending with the sounds 

 of the elements, combine to add a wildness to the scene which was already sufficiently 

 savage. 



" But the spring-tide is nearly at its lowest ; a rocky path leads down from our 

 eminence to a recess in the precipice, whence in these conditions access may be obtained 

 to a sea cavern that we may possibly find entertainment in exploring." 



Madame de Gasparin, in her visit to Italy, thus describes her impressions of a 

 thunderstorm, the reveries of an enthusiastic poet-traveller.* She says: "Last night 

 a storm burst over Chiaveri. Three tempests in one ! and we in the very centre of the 

 action. 



"The thunder, marching on for a long time with that solemn roll which reveals the depths 

 of. the skies, suddenly explodes with a crash; the lightnings fall straight and serried no 

 longer a series of fantastic zig-zags, but a very focus of electric light. Sometimes the 

 brilliancy flashes out behind the castle, and the outline of its square tower, black as ink, 



* " By the Sea-shore." 



145 



