THE STORMY PETREL. 213 



sea, and, ending abruptly, present the most 

 stupendous and awful precipices. The natives 

 are kind and hospitable, ever willing to lend you 

 all the assistance possible, to guide you through 

 the cliffs, scale the rocks, and brave the most 

 perilous dangers. Nursed from infancy amid 

 the roar of winds and waves, and the boiling 

 lash of the foaming surge, they traverse, with 

 perfect ease, the most towering and splinter- 

 shaped pinnacles of rock, in quest of wild-fowl 

 for subsistence. On the southern side of the 

 island is one of the most stupendous cliffs I ever 

 beheld. It consists of a lofty mountain, entirely 

 isolated, resembling a cone split or divided from 

 its very summit to the sea. Viewed from the 

 sea in a boat, it strikes the imagination as the 

 brickwork of a gigantic fortress, being in itself 

 perfectly mural, with scarcely a broken chasm or 

 rent observable, so regular and so beautiful is 

 this bulwark of nature. It is estimated to be 

 about one thousand five hundred feet above the 

 level of the sea, and is resorted to by innumer- 

 able hosts of aquatic birds. The kittiwake and 

 guillemot occupy the lowest part; above them 

 the herring-gull, and a few of the black-headed 

 gull; and higher still the Manks puffin, common 

 puffin, and stormy petrel; the whole forming a 

 scene truly delightful to the eye of the ornitho- 



