WIND-RAPIDS ON THE HEIGHTS 85 



of the exhilaration that goes with the river rapid, 

 but exhilaration is not wholly absent. In bays and 

 channels of the sea the restless waters wildly eddy; 

 powerful, invisible undertows and whirlpools are 

 present where wild, defiant winds are diverted. 



Rock projections, behind which I hoped to find 

 shelter, were more unfriendly places than the open. 

 The wind appeared to round them with increased 

 speed, and to batter the leeward more furiously 

 than the stormward front. Around a number of 

 rocky projections the wind revolved with swirling 

 rapidity. It hurled me off with centrifugal mo- 

 tion each time I made close approach. Once I 

 blundered by breaking into one of these whirls, 

 and was roughly handled while in and while getting 

 out of it. 



Each time that I hugged the earth more closely 

 than usual, the wind took a sheer delight in paying 

 me personal attentions. While many of these calls 

 were with evil intentions, the others were but the 

 investigations of the curious. I was grabbed and 

 then slammed back; I was trampled upon and sev- 

 eral times was recklessly dragged over rough 

 stones. I was occasionally raised gently upward, 

 then laid gently down; rolled slowly over, then 

 turned slowly back. Once I was picked carefully 

 up by a current that carried me off as carefully as 

 if to first aid; but from this I was rudely snatched 

 by an angry wind, whose every effort was to put 

 me in need of this aid. 



