keeve's hole, 131 



well, or, as it is pronouuced, " Suthill," and coming 

 into sight of the two white light houses that are erected 

 ahove the Bill. It is remarkable how generally the 

 names of the hamlets contain the word "well," showing 

 doubtless that the existence of a spring of water was 

 the determining cause of the position of a village. 

 Here I turned off to the left, deferring to another 

 occasion a sight of the extreme point or Bill, for lack 

 of time, as I was desirous of exploring another singular 

 natural curiosity, Keeve's Hole. Over a breadth of 

 ploughed land, sown with clover in strips, I made my 

 way towards the edge of the cbff, but before reaching it 

 came suddenly on an oval pit about eighteen yards 

 long by eleven wide, and ten feet deep in the middle 

 where the flat bed of stone is uncovered. The central 

 part of this bed has dropped away, and though the 

 aperture, the thickness of the stratum being about 

 three feet, I looked down into an ample cavern. The 

 interior was somewhat dark, but sufficient light was 

 admitted to allow of the sides and bottom being 

 obscurely discerned ; a light which came not from the 

 orifice in the roof through which I was peering, but 

 from a gallery which, with some windings, opened on 

 the face of the clifi", and through which the waves of 

 the sea were dashing with a reverberating roar. I 

 could scarcely look down into the abyss without a 

 shuddering dread, which was not diminished by the 

 story told me- by a lad near, of a fool-hardy fellow 

 who, to elicit the admiration of his comrades, must 

 needs jump across the chasm. He failed to make 

 good his footing, and fell through into the cavern, 

 which, as well as I could judge, is about fifty feet deep. 



