CLASS II. AVES: ORDER 8. NATATORES. 349 



island, beholding from various points its vast and wave-worn caverns filled witli tlie murmurinor 

 sea — its deep, dark, rocky battlements — and, over all, tlie cloud-capped summits of the hoary 

 Connagher, the highest mountain of St. Kilda. As we approached a stupendous precipice we 

 could see the people perched like jackdaws along its edge, and that we might be as near as pos- 

 sible to the scene of action, we got into the small boat, and rowed — minister and all — toward the 

 mural shore. It was almost fearful to behold it hanging in such huge and ponderous masses 



overhead — 



' Cliffs of darkness, caves of wonder, 

 Echoing the Atlantic's thunder !' 



"We then stood still upon our oars, and the minister rose and waved his hat. Suddenly we 

 could hear in the air above us a faint huzzaing sound, and at the same instant three or four men, 

 from different parts of the cliff, threw themselves into the air, and darted some distance down- 

 ward, just as spiders drop from the top of a Avail. They then swung and capered along the face 

 of the precipice, bounding off at intervals by striking their feet against it, and springing from side 

 to side with as much fearless ease and agility as if they were so many schoolboys exercising in a 

 swing a few feet over a soft and balmy clover-field. Now they were, probably, not less than seven 

 hundred feet above the sea, and the cliff was not only perpendicular in its upper portion, but as 

 it descended it curved backward, as it were, forming a huge, rugged, hollow portion, eaten into 

 by the angry lashing of the almost ceaseless waves. In this manner, shouting and dancing, they 

 descended a long way tOAvard us, though still suspended at a vast height in the air, for it would 

 probably have taken all their cordage joined together to have reached the sea. A great mass of 

 the central portion of the precipice was smoother than the wall of a well-built house, and it was 

 this portion especially which was not only perpendicular, but had its basement arched inward into 

 an enormous wave-worn grotto, so that any one falling from the summit would drop at once sheer 

 into the sea." 



The great dependence of the bird-catchers of St. Kilda is upon ropes of two sorts : one made 

 of hides, the other of hair of cows' tails, all of the same thickness. The former are the most an- 

 cient, and still continue in the greatest esteem, as being stronger and less liable to wear away or 

 be cut by rubbing against the sharp edges of rocks. These ropes are of various lengths, from 

 ninety to a hundred and twenty, and nearly two hundred feet in length, and about three inches 

 in circumference. Those of hide are made of cows' and sheep's hides mixed together. The hide 

 of the sheep, after being cut into narrow slips, is platted over with a broader slip of cow's hide. 

 Two of these are then twisted together ; so that the rope, when untwisted, is found to consist of 

 two parts, and each of these contains a length of sheep-skin covered with cow's hide. For the 

 best, they will ask ifcout thirteen-pence a fathom, at which price they sell them to each other. 

 So valuable are these ropes, that one of them forms the marriage portion of a St. Kilda girl, and, 

 to this secluded people, to whom moneyed wealth is little known, is an article on which often life 

 itself, and all its comforts, more or less depends, far beyond gold and jewels. 



In general, the daring performances of these people, however frightful to those who are unused 

 to them, pass without accident ; there are instances, however, in which the danger is vividly pre- 

 sented. A lady who lived about two miles from the South Stack, on the rocky coast of Rhos- 

 colin, sent a boy in search of samphire, with a trusty servant to hold the rope at the top. AVhile 

 the boy was dangling midway between sky and water, the servant, who was unused to his situa- 

 tion, whether owing to a sudden dizziness from looking downward on the boy's motions, or mis- 

 givings as to bis own powers of holding him up, felt a cold, sickly shivering creep over him, ac- 

 companied with a certainty that he was about to faint ; the inevitable consequence of which, he 

 had sense enough left to know, would be the certain death of the boy, and, in all probability, of 

 himself, as in the act of fainting it was most likely he would fall forward, and follow the rope and 

 boy down the precipice. In this dilemma, he uttered a loud, despairing scream, which was for- 

 tunately heard by a woman working in an adjoining field, who, running up, was just in time to 

 catch the rope as the fainting man fell senseless at her feet. 



We shall add a few more incidents, equally hazardous, and one fatal. Many bird-catchers go on 

 these expeditions without any companion to hold the rope or assist them. It was on such a son- 



