60 LANDSCAPE AND IMAGINATION 



this lofty summit, which is known as Slieve League, 

 the ground plunges down on the other side in a 

 succession of precipices into the Atlantic Ocean, which 

 stretches from the far western horizon up to the very 

 base of the crags beneath our feet. We have in truth 

 been climbing a mountain whereof one-half has been 

 cut away by the sea. What a picture of decay here 

 presents itself! We peer over the verge of the cliffs, 

 still wrapped in their morning shadows, and mark how 

 peak, ridge, and wall of flinty quartzite, glowing in 

 tints of orange, yellow, and red, uprear themselves 

 from the face of the declivity, like the muscles on 

 the limb of some sculptured Hercules, as if the moun- 

 tain had gathered up its whole strength and knit its 

 frame together to defy the fiercest assaults of the 

 elements. But look how every crag is splintered, 

 how every jutting buttress is rent and creviced, how 

 every ledge is strewn with blocks that have fallen from 

 the naked wall above it ! If we detach one of these 

 loosened blocks and set it in downward motion, we 

 may watch it plunge into the abyss, flash from crag to 

 crag, career down the screes of rubbish and make no 

 pause until, if it survive so far, it dashes into the surge 

 below. What we can thus carelessly do in a few 

 moments is done deliberately every winter by the 

 hand of Nature. Slowly but ceaselessly this vast sea- 

 wall, swept by Atlantic storm, sapped by frost, soaked 

 with rain, dried and beaten by sun and wind, is being 

 battered down under the fire of Nature's resistless 

 artillery. 



So far the scene is one that requires no special 

 acquaintance with science for its appreciation. The 



