io THE SOUTHERN CLIFFS 



level bath of quicksilver, veiled with pale-grey exhala- 

 tions, similar in tone, but without reflected light, which 

 appears only in the broad and shining track which runs 

 from the shore across to the horizon and the sun. 

 Only on the sea-level the south-east wind and tide 

 seem to revolve the mass of water in an immense 

 dimpled and revolving eddy, which has for one margin 

 the whole semi-circle of the bay. The horizon, even 

 where the sea whitens under the sun, is indistinct, and 

 the division of water and vapour undiscoverable by a 

 landsman's eye. Backed by the cornfields and bounded 

 by the sea, the narrow line of clifF-face and beach enjoy 

 at this hour a quiet and repose which seems for the 

 time to allay the mistrust and fear of man of the 

 wildest of the sea-fowl and land-birds which haunt the 

 cliffs and precipices of the shore. Just after sunrise, in 

 Whitecliff Bay, which, with its adjacent precipices of 

 the Culver Cliffs, corresponds at the eastern angle of 

 the Isle of Wight to Alum Bay and Freshwater Cliffs 

 on the west, the writer found the ravens sitting on the 

 juts of a sand-cliff, and almost as tame as the jackdaws, 

 whom they had driven from the warm ledge on which 

 they take their morning sun-bath. Except for the 

 ravens there seemed not to be a living creature in the 

 bay, though from beyond the chalk crag to the right, 

 where the high cliffs face the south, the croak of the 

 cormorants, and the screams and laughter of the gulls, 

 rose above the measured suck and surge of the flowing 

 tide among the shingle. The sand and clay-cliffs were 

 full of small land-birds ; pert, blackheaded stonechats 



