WILD ENGLAND OF TO-DAY 



THE SOUTHERN CLIFFS 



SEA-FOWL AND SAMPHIRE 



THERE are still a few patches of the earth's surface 

 left in England to which no " Access to Mountains 

 Bill " or funicular railway will give admission ; where 

 Nature calls to man to keep his distance, and peremp- 

 torily forbids him even to set foot. Such, at least, is 

 the warning, as we read it, written on the Southern 

 Cliffs by the sheep-track that shrinks back from the 

 scalloped edging of the brow, and the treacherous tide 

 that prowls for ever at their feet, and piles round them 

 the rotten debris of ocean death and land's decay. Yet 

 the attraction of these great cliffs to the imagination 

 and curiosity is as strong as the repulsion which sense 

 dictates. When the air is still, we may sit by the verge 

 and look over, while the white gulls swing out and 

 float beneath ; gazing, as it were, on some inverted 



world, where blue sea takes the place of blue sky, and 



B 



