SEA-FOWL AND SAMPHIRE 7 



yet not so tangled but that each plant could be dis- 

 tinguished from its fellow when the eye became accus- 

 tomed to the sea change suffered by the light in " the 

 waves' intenser day. 1 ' Our samphire-gatherer, after 

 ascending to a point from which his form was hardly 

 discernible amongst the giant fragments of rock, cast 

 a great armful of pale-green aromatic cliff-herbs into 

 the boat samphire, and sea-poppy, and wild mignon- 

 ette. Of these, the samphire is the strangest, with its 

 thick, fleshy leaves like ice-plant, its salt and pungent 

 scent and taste, and pale, uncanny-looking flower. To 

 gather it in any quantity, it would be necessary to scale 

 the most dangerous parts of the cliff, and it was while 

 seeking this and sea-fowls' eggs that the cragsman was 

 usually engaged, whose death we have mentioned. It 

 was his practice to go alone on his perilous expeditions, 

 and the exact manner of his death will never be known. 

 It is more usual for two or three rock-climbers to work 

 together. A crowbar is planted in the turf above, and 

 two ropes are used. One goes round the body, and 

 the other is held in the hand ; the first is warped round 

 the crowbar, so as to be let out at pleasure ; the second 

 is fixed to it by a noose, and when the cragsman wishes 

 to reascend, he shakes this second rope as a signal, and 

 the men on the top of the cliff haul at the waist-rope, 

 while he assists by climbing up the second, hand-over- 

 hand. The greatest risk is run when the climber 

 throws off his waist-rope, and clambers along the 

 shelving ledges of slippery turf which seam the cliff, 

 where the least slip is fatal. 



