510 
eiley's narrative. 
that, on land, they could do no more than perish. 
The mariners, with heavy hearts, admitted the 
force of this reasoning, and the vessel was turned 
towards the coast. It was the 7th, however, be- 
fore they arrived at a promontory, which they af- 
terwards found to be Cape Barbas, a little to the 
north of Cape Blanco. The shore was here lined 
with a face of perpendicular and broken cliffs, 
where they in vain attempted to find an ascent. 
They searched for four miles along the foot of the 
wall of rock, and were at length obliged to spend 
the night on the sand. Next morning they rose 
somewhat refreshed, and Riley came to a spot 
which seemed to afford a perilous possibility of 
ascent. There, " clinging for life" to the loose 
rocks, he scrambled from steep to steep, till, by a 
tedious path, he at length reached the summit 
of the cliff. But what was his horror, when he 
beheld before him an immeasurable plain, with- 
out a tree, shrub, or spear of grass, that could 
" give the smallest relief to expiring nature." 
He fell senseless to the ground, and was some 
time before he regained the full possession of con- 
sciousness. His companions, who were far be- 
hind, though previously warned, experienced a si- 
milar shock at the first view of this expanse of de- 
solation. They fell to the earth, exclaiming, 
'Tis enough ! here we must breathe our last." 
Eiley however, after the first shock was over, en* 
