S90 HISTORY OK 



fowler's body ; on which he pulleth, to give them notice how 

 they should let down the great rope, either lower or higher; or 

 to hold still, that he may stay in the place whereunto he is 

 come. Here the man is in great danger, because of the stones 

 that are loosened from the cliff, by the swinging of the rope, and 

 he cannot avoid them. To remedy this, in some measure, he 

 hath usually on his head a seaman's thick and shaggy cap, which 

 defends him from the blows of the stones, if they be not too big ; 

 and then it costeth him his life : nevertheless, they continually 

 put themselves in that danger, for the wretched body's food sake, 

 hoping in God's mercy and protection, unto which the greatest 

 part of them do devoutly recommend themselves when they go 

 to work : otherwise, they say, there is no other great danger in 

 it, except that it is a toilsome and artificial labour ; for he that 

 hath not learned to be so let down, and is not used thereto, is 

 turned about with the rope, so that he soon groweth giddy, and 

 can do nothing ; but he that hath learned the art, considers it 

 as a sport, swings himself on the rope, sets his feet against the 

 rock, casts himself some fathoms from thence, and shoots him- 

 self to what place he will ; he knows where the birds are, he 

 understands how to sit on the line in the air, and how to hold 

 the fowling-staff in his hand ; striking therewith the birds that 

 come or fly away : and when there are holes in the rocks, and it 

 stretches itself out, making underneath as a ceiling under which 

 the birds are, he knoweth how to shoot himself in among them, 

 and there take firm footing. There, when he is in these holes, 

 he maketh himself loose of the rope, which he fastens to a 

 crag of the rock, that it may not slip from him to the outside of 

 the cliff. He then goes about in the rock, taking the fowl 

 either with liis hands or the fowling-staff. Thus, when he hath 

 killed as many birds as he thinks tit, he ties them in a bundle, 

 and fastens them to a little rope, giving a sign, by pulling, that 

 they should draw them up. When he has vvrought thus the 

 whole day, and desires to get up again, he sitteth once more upon 

 the great rope, giving a new sign that they should pull him up ; 

 or else he worketh himself up, climbing along the rope, with his 

 girdle full of birds. It is also usual, where there are not folks 

 enough to hold the great rope, for the fowler to drive a post 

 sloping into the eaith, and to make a rope fast therefrom, by 

 which he lets himself down without anybody's help, to work in 



