WATER-FOWL. 205 



the cliffs that he fell down and died, if the body was found before bu- 

 rial, his next kinsman should go the same way ; but if he durst not, 

 or could not do it, the dead body was not then to be buried in sanc- 

 tified earth, as the person was too full of temerity, and his own de- 

 stroyer. 



" When the fowlers are come, in the manner aforesaid, to the 

 birds within the cliffs, where people seldom come, the birds are so 

 tame that they take them with their hands, for they will not readily 

 leave their young. But when they are wild, they cast a net, with 

 which they are provided, over them, and entangle them therein. In 

 the mean time, there lieth a boat beneath in the sea, wherein they cast 

 the birds killed ; and in this manner they can in a short time fill a 

 boat with fowl. When it is pretty fair weather, and there is good 

 fowling, the fowlers stay in the cliff seven or eight days together ; for 

 there are here and there holes in the rocks, where they can safely 

 rest ; and they have meat let down to them with a line from the top 

 of the mountain. In the mean time some go every day to them, to 

 fetch home what they have taken. 



" Some rocks are so difficult, that they can in no manner get unto 

 them from below ; wherefore they seek to come down thereunto from 

 above. For this purpose they have a rope eighty or a hundred 

 fathoms long, made of hemp, and three fingers thick. The fowler 

 maketh the end of this fast about his waist, and between his legs, so 

 that he can sit thereon, and is thus let down, with the fowling staff 

 in his hand. Six men hold by the rope, and let him easily down, lay- 

 ing a large piece of wood on the brink of the rock, upon which the 

 rope glideth, that it may not be worn to pieces by the hard and rough 

 edge of the stone. They have, besides, another small line, that is 

 fastened to the fowler's body ; on which he pulleth, to give them no- 

 tice how they should let down the great rope, either lower or higher ; 

 or to hold still, that he may stay in the place whereunto he is come. 

 Here the man is in great danger, because of the stones that are loos- 

 ened from the cliff, by the swinging of the rope, and he cannot avoid 

 them. To remedy this, in some measure, he hath usually on his 

 head a seaman's thick and shaggy cap, which defends him from the 

 blows of the stones, if they be not too big ; and then it costeth him 

 his life : nevertheless, they continually put themselves in that danger, 

 for the wretched body's food sake, hoping in God's mercy and pro- 

 tection, unto which the greatest part of them do devoutly recommend 

 themselves when they go to work : otherwise, they say, there is no 

 other great danger in it, except that it is a toilsome and artificial la- 

 bour ; for he that hath not learned to be so let down, and is not used 

 thereto, is turned about with the rope, so that he soon groweth giddy, 

 and can do nothing; but he that hath learned the art, considers it as 

 a sport, swings himself on the rope, sets his feet against the rock, 

 casts himself some fathoms from thence, and shoots himself to what 

 I lace he will; he knows where the birds are, he understands how to 

 sit on the line in the air, and how to hold the fowling-staff in his 

 hand ; striking therewith the birds that come or fly away : and when 

 there are holes in the rocks, and it stretches itself out, making un 

 derneath as a ceiling under which the birds are, he knoweth how to 

 shoot himself in among them, and there take firm fooling. Thoi f> 



