A DANGEROUS LEAP. 87 



Just as I was congratulating myself upon having 

 got down to the water's edge again in safety, and 

 doffing the climbing-rope I had had attached to my 

 shoulders for safety, it was announced that we could 

 not possibly re- ship at the place where we had 

 landed, on account of the tremendous ground-swell. 

 My heart sank within me when I looked up at 

 the awful detour we should be obliged to make in 

 order to get to a place where the conditions for 

 embarkation would be more favourable. The 

 thing looked impossible. After travelling in a 

 slanting, upward direction for some time, we came 

 to a narrow ledge, along which we cautiously crept, 

 with the sea boiling and thundering a couple of 

 hundred feet sheer beneath us. I had had a rope 

 attached to me all the time, but my brother refused 

 to have any safeguard of this kind, deeming, himself 

 capable of going wherever the St. Kildans went 

 under similar conditions; but when we came to a 

 great yawning chasm in the rock which had to be 

 leapt, they appeared to recognise their own re- 

 sponsibility in the matter, and quietly lassoed him 

 from behind. In order to make assurance doubly 

 sure in my case they tied two ropes round me, and, 

 when I jumped, one was held by a man who had 

 already crossed the chasm, and the other by one 

 who had not yet done so. The side upon which 1 

 landed was lower than that from which I leapt, 

 and the sting of alighting upon hard rock without 

 boots on one's feet is something to be remembered 

 for many a day. 



We had not gone far along this awful path before 

 I discovered a dead sheep wedged betwixt two crags. 

 It had no doubt been blown from the heights that 

 towered against the blue sky far overhead. I was 

 anxious to examine it from a natural history point 



