ROPE-WORK. 95 



the strain is very severe, and secondly, as the 

 support is not in the centre, but towards the head, 

 it is sometimes, as when the cliff recedes inwards, 

 a great strain to keep the body horizontal, or, in 

 fact, even to keep the feet in touch with the rock 

 at all, but should one fail to do so (which is inevit- 

 able if the cliff is much overhung) one then only 

 assumes a natural and dependent position with the 

 head uppermost, and even in this dangling attitude 

 both arms are free to work the camera. 



To keep the hand-line always within reach ifc is 

 a wise precaution to pass it through a loose belt 

 round the waist, it is then always at hand and can 

 never swing out of reach. 



The Crowbar. 



But by whatever means the lowering rope is to 

 be fastened to the body, the methods of the actual 

 climbing are the same. The first thing to be done 

 is to decide exactly upon the point at which the 

 descent must be made, and when the object in 

 view is some individual nest as opposed to a colony, 

 one must be precisely above it, for in a smooth 

 cliff-face lateral progression is almost impossible. 

 Here a crowbar, having a flat or enlarged head, is 

 driven into the ground, sloping backwards from the 

 cliff -edge. It should, if possible, be driven in 

 until only three or four inches remain, and to this 

 one end of the lighter, or hand-line, is made fast, 



