130 A GRAND LAND-SLIP. 



A little way beyond Church Hope, going southward, 

 there is a vast chasm, produced by some convulsion of 

 nature prior to all tradition. Its general course is 

 straight, and parallel with the coast ; running perhaps 

 a quarter of a mile in length, and thirty yards in ave- 

 rage width (I speak conjecturally, for I had no means 

 of measuring it) ; the stone sides rising perpendicu- 

 larly, exactly like walls, with the stratification imitat- 

 ing courses of regular masonry, but of cyclopean 

 dimensions. Long brambles, shooting from the fis- 

 sures, spread in patches, which assist the glossy ivy 

 to throw a graceful drapery over the walls of this 

 yawning gulf; and the suspicious blackbird that shot 

 out of her nest at my approach, and the lesser birds 

 that hopped about, shewed that, however awful the 

 scene appeared to me, it was not without its charms 

 for these gentle denizens. 



I was struck with the resemblance which this phe- 

 nomenon bears to a chasm in Lundy, that I have 

 elsewhere described. No doubt in each case the 

 eifect was produced by the partial separation and re- 

 cession of a slice (if I may use so undignified a term) 

 of the precipice, which, instead of proceeding to a fall, 

 which would simply have opened a new line of the 

 coast-edge, became, from some hindering cause, pre- 

 maturely arrested midway, and has remained so fixed. 

 This is not the only instance which I remarked of 

 parallelism to Lundy in phenomena ; though the geo- 

 logical formation of that rooky islet is very different, 

 being granite. 



At length I approached the southern extremity of 

 the isle, passing through another village called South- 



