22 THE SOUTHERN CLIFFS 



toppling waves, seemed determined to ride out the gale. 

 But the constant rushing seas, which wrenched from 

 their moorings and flung on shore even the fishing- 

 boats anchored within the reef of rocks, soon wore out 

 the strength of the ducks. Company after company 

 rose and skimmed swiftly up and down, seeking some 

 smoother and more sheltered spot, and finding none, 

 turned their backs to the wind, and rising high and 

 fast, abandoned the effort to keep the sea, and flew 

 with extraordinary speed high over the cliffs. In half- 

 an-hour after the rising of the first flock, every duck 

 had left the salt-water, and flown in to face the dangers 

 of the sheltered waters inland. The storm had beaten 

 them. 



As night fell the snow came. Carried on the gale, 

 it rushed on in level lines, as if blown from a gun. 

 The shore was silent and deserted. The nightly flight 

 of fowl from the sea inland was suspended, and the 

 only bird by the cliffs was a solitary owl, flitting in the 

 dusk along the shore. Next morning the gale fell, 

 and as the tide ebbed, we saw upon the beach some 

 natural records of the forces before which the sea-fowl 

 had retired. All the ridges of shingle had been cut 

 away, and the beach relaid in an even and regular slope 

 from the cliffs to the edge of the surge, brown and 

 smooth, like bolted bran. The waves were thick with 

 sea-weed torn fresh from the deeply submerged rocks. 

 It lay in long wavy lines, wet and glistening, like the 

 patterns on watered silk ; brown oar-weed, with roots 

 all crusted with pink sea-wet ; green feathery sea-moss, 



