436 BIKD-CATCHING. 



Diminished to her cock; her cock, a buoy, 

 Almost too small for sight : the murmuring surge, 

 That on the unnumbered idle pebbles chafes, 

 Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more; 

 Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight 

 Topple down headlong. 



Such is the beautiful description of Dover Cliff by Shak- 

 speare ; but what would he have said, could he have looked 

 down from this precipice in St. Kilda, which is nearly three 

 times higher, and so tremendous, that one who was accus- 

 tomed to regard such sights with indifference, dared not 

 venture to the edge of it alone ? But, held by two of the 

 islanders, he looked over into what might be termed a world 

 of rolling mists and contending clouds. As these occasion- 

 ally broke and dispersed, the ocean was disclosed below, but 

 at so great a depth that even the roaring of its surf, dashing 

 with fury against the rocks, and rushing with a noise like 

 thunder into the caverns it had formed, was unheard at this 

 stupendous height. The brink was wet and slippery, the 

 rocks perpendicular from their summit to their base ; and 

 yet, upon this treacherous surface, the St. Kilda people 

 approached, and sat upon the extremest verge ; the youngest 

 of them even creeping down a little way from the top, after 

 eggs or birds, building in the higher range, which they 

 take in great numbers, by means of a .slender pole like 

 a fishing-rod, at the end of which was fixed a noose of 

 cow-hair, stiffened at one end with the feather of a Solan 

 Goose. 



But these pranks of the young are nothing when com- 

 pared to the fearful feats of the older and more experienced 

 practitioners. Several ropes of hide and hair are first tied 

 together to increase the depth of his descent. One 

 extremity of these ropes, so connected, is of hide, and the 

 end is fastened, like a girdle, round his waist. The other 

 extremity is then let down the precipice, to a considerable 

 depth, by the adventurer himself, standing at the edge : 

 when, giving the middle of the rope to a single man, he 



