FOREST AND STREAM 
IMaech i8, 1903. 
The Fall "of a Cliff Climber. 
The early summer of 1888 found me cruising, alone 
ill a small open Indian canoe, among the islands off the 
coast of British Columbia. I was collecting specimens 
for museums of natural history in the East, and was 
armed with a double shotgun and equipped with in- 
struments for skinning birds, preserving eggs and de- 
taching fossil shells from the seaward faces of the cliffs. 
A large water-tight zinc case contained the perishable 
objects and a change of clothing. A few cooking 
utensils, some provisions, a small opera glass, note- 
book and pencil, and a diminutive shelter tent with 
blankets, completed the outfit. 
Thus armed and equipped, I cruised from island to 
island and from one rock or ledge to another, dug 
shells from the cliffs, shot sea birds, or gathered their 
eggs from the shelves of the rocks ,or the isolated sea- 
washed "hog-back" ledges, and camped wherever night 
overtook me. My food was largely game and fish> 
which were so plentiful that there was no danger of 
starvation. There was nothing to fear from man or 
beast, as the sea birds always gave warning of the ap- 
proach of Indians, and there were no large land ani- 
mals on the islands. The only dangers encountered 
were those incident to boating and cliff climbing. The 
tides on the northwest coast are strong, with danger- 
ous tide rips, and in some places, whirlpools which 
might engulf a small canoe. It was impossible to make 
headway by paddling or rowing against the full strength 
of the tide, and high winds occasionally sprang up with- 
out warning; but by taking advantage of favorable winds 
and tides, I was able to get safely from one island to 
another. Thus the long days were filled with work and 
adventure, and the short nights were passed in dream- 
less sleep beside the camp-fire — sleep broken only by the 
hoarse growling of the seals or the wild cries of sea 
birds. 
The formation of these islands was such that each 
offered, at both its north and south ends, a little harbor 
which was protected from the sea by flanking walls. 
Within each harbor the rocks shelved to a natural land- 
ing place and made access easy to the top of the island; 
but -the sides descended precipitously into the sea and 
could be reached only from above. Most of the islands 
were topped with scattering trees, iind a few were 
wooded. 
In searching for birds' eggs my usual method of de- 
scending a cliff was to pass a rope around a tree trunk 
at the summit, throw the ends over, and climb down- 
ward, holding both lines in my hands. On attempting 
sheer descents I would make one end of the rope fast 
and let myself down, hand over hand, to some shelf, 
returning the same way. By passing a bight of the line 
about my body and making it fast with a bowline, 
could hang over the edge of a cliff in a "bo'swain's 
chair" and use both hands in digging into the puffins' 
burrows, which honeycombed the three or four feet of 
earth that covered the top of the rock. 
On the last island of the group, which was treeless, 
there was no point of attachment for a line, and as 
there were clefts in which sea pigeons made their homes 
I determined to try a descent without a rope. To see 
how this might be done, I lay down at the edge, and ex- 
amined that portion of the cliff which could be seen 
from my position. The rock sloped irregularly down- 
ward for about twenty feet, and then assumed the per- 
pendicular. Along its visible portion there were occa- 
sional vertical fissures; also some horizontal and diag- 
onal seams with narrow projecting shelves, which of- 
fered footing and hand-hold. Where the seams inter- 
sected the vertical fissures, little caves were formed, 
and in these the birds were nesting. A cleft larger than 
the others could be seen some distance to my right. 
Projecting from it and overhanging the verge was a 
weather-beaten stump or "snag," alb that remained of a 
lone tree that had once grown out of this miniature chasm. 
Just beneath this the cliff overhung its base and was 
inaccessible. 
Choosing for a foothold a shelf running diagonally 
downward, and descending it with great care by thrust- 
ing my fingers into such crevices as happened to be 
within reach, I gained the first deep, vertical cleft. In- 
serting my head, arms and shoulders, I secured a set of 
guillemot's eggs, but could reach no more, for they 
were far back out of sight in the very bowels of the 
rock. The next shelf was harly five inches wide. I 
carefully let myself down to it, and, finding such hand- 
hold as presented itself, crept cautiously on. I had al- 
most reached the large cleft, when an unexpected horror 
happened. The surface of the rock must have been 
undergoing disintegration, for the whole shelf gave way 
bodily beneath my weight. My feet shot out and down 
so quickly and my body followed with so sudden an im- 
petus that my hands were torn away from the cleft 
which my fingers had just reached to clutch. In an in- 
stant I was hurtling down the rocky slope. My body 
was battered against the projections of the surface, but 
they did not check my descent. In sliding past the 
place where the shelf had been I involuntarily turned 
in the air, throwing my body toward the cleft and 
reaching downward for the snag, on which my whole 
mind was now centered. My hunting coat caught on 
the cliff and was dragged up over my shoulders. This 
jnay have checked my progress a little, but the only 
noticeable effect was that my field glass fell out of my 
pocket and my knife dropped from its upturned sheath. 
Half falling, half sliding down that steep and rugged 
slope toward that fearful verge, hurried toward certain 
destruction, I clutched at the snag in passing, as a 
drowning man clutches at a straw, reached it and held 
on with a death grip. My whole soul went into that 
grip. The weeks of rowing, paddling and cliff climbing 
that had hardened my muscles and strengthened my 
fingers now served well their purpose. As my body, 
checked at arm's length, swung beneath the snag, it 
seemed as if the strain would tear my arms from their 
sockets. The snag, giving under my weight and the 
impetus of the fall, sank crackling downward toward 
the shelf at the bottom of the crevice. Then for an 
instant I was conscious of an awful tingling sensation 
running through my whole frame. It pierced like a 
rapier! It burned like fire! It seemed to check the 
processes of reason, and to convert me into a maniac. 
Cling! Cling! Cling! This one thought, unshaped 
in words, rang through my brain. With the frenzy of 
a madman I clung to that creaking wood. It may have 
been the mere instinct of self-preservation as mani- 
fested in the stiffening grip of the drjowning man. It 
may have been a touch of that insarie panic that stam- 
pedes animals, or in a moment changes a crowd of sen- 
sible people into a maddened mob that blindly tramples 
out human life in the effort to escape death. Whatever 
it was, it transcends all the experiences of a lifetime. I 
never shall be able to blot it from my memory while 
life remains. 
As my reeling senses became clear and reason as- 
serted her sway, the thrill of horror still remained 
tingling through nerve and muscle to my finger tips; 
but their grip never relaxed. 
And so I hung there and felt the rending wood give 
and creak as I swung. Every sound, every motion of 
it, send a poignant shock through my frame. I heard 
the clink of the knife as it struck the jagged rocks far 
below and the surge of the sea ceaselessly washing 
about them. It is said that in such moments all the 
events of one's life pass through the mind. No such 
thoughts came to me. My whole mind was now con- 
centrated in holding on to the last breath, or until the 
straining wood should part. But at last the old snag 
rested on the ledge. Its roots were firmly anchored 
under the solid rock, and though splintered, they held. 
I was now hanging over the very verge of the cliff, 
with my feet dangling below the overhang. There was 
no foothold there, and it seemed that when strength 
failed I must fall into the abyss. Still I was alive; I 
felt a stern joy that, hanging there, on the brink of 
eternity, I was able to hold on and defy death a little 
longer. My heart was strong again. I was ready to 
fight for life. And here my experience as a lone hunter 
came to my aid. There are many compensations for the 
isolation of such a life, chief among which is the spirit 
of self-reliance which it implants in one's nature. I 
knew that my life must be saved, if at all, by my own 
efforts. I cast no despairing glances over that sailless 
sea, nor wasted breath in useless shouts for help. My 
eye ran over the face of the rock, while my fingers 
worked nervously in an effort to bring my body nearer 
the cleft. With this effort came the dawn of hope. _ A 
little to my right was a widening of a small crevice, 
which I managed to reach with my right foot by work- 
ing up the snag with both hands and then raising both 
body and limbs. It was a nerve-racking task, for at 
every movement the wood cracked again, sending 
shocks of agonizing apprehension through my frame. 
Getting the toe of my right shoe well into the crevice, 
and leaning my body against the rock, I hung panting 
for breath, hopeful, yet fearing every instant lest the 
splintered snag should part. 
Having regained breath, I unclasped my right hand 
from the saving wood, and reached another crevice still 
higher up. Working my hand along this to a safe 
hold, I put up the other hand, and then drew my body 
up until, by bending my back and contracting my 
stomach, I could throw my chest and shoulders for- 
ward over a projection of the rock. Then, lying close 
to the cliff with my head and chest against the foot of 
the slope down which I had come, my weight was par- 
tially resting on the rock, and there was no danger of 
falling unless the rock crumbled as before. Both hands 
were now in the cleft above my head, and although the 
rock here crumbled a little, it gave me a fairly good 
hand-hold while I thrust my rubber-soled climbing 
shoes into the cleft below, and not daring to look 
down, edged my way diagonally upward by inches. 
Soon my whole body was on the slope, and then I 
climbed 'with the utmost caution, hanging tooth and 
nail, working slowly from cleft to cleft, until at last I 
hauled myself painfully over the edge and around on 
the turf, which I had thought never to see again. Here 
I threw myself down, bruised, strained, exhausted, but 
happy, feeling the joy of a man who, standing on the 
scaffold, is saved by a reprieve at the last moment. 
Those who have never been near a sudden and hor- 
rible death may not realize that in the joy of escape 
there is a certain compensation for the pangs endured. 
I never afterward went over a cliff without a good 
rope in my hands. 
When the tide went down, baring some of the rocks 
below, I went round in the canoe, and at some risk ef- 
fected a landing at the base of the cliff. The battered 
glass, minus its case, lay in a crevice where it had 
fallen or been tossed by the sea. The knife could not 
be found. 
I coasted around the island and examined critically 
the rocks. The snag to which I had hung was the only 
vestige of a tree to be seen on the face of the seamed 
and sea-worn cliffs. I wondered at its being there. 
How came that seed in the recesses of that cleft, high 
on the brow of that barren rock — the seed that grew 
into a tree which for years must have overhung the 
waste of waters until some great tempest tore it bodily 
away, leaving barely enough wood to check my fall and 
support my weight? What nourished it there and en- 
abled it to grow until it had fastened its roots deep in 
the seams of the rock from which even the hurricane 
could not tear them away? Probably since the be- 
ginning of time that rock had never upheld another 
tree. The isle is probably of comparatively recent 
origin, for there was very little soil upon its summit 
and there was no sign that any tree ever grew there. 
What planted the one tree upon that island in the only 
place where its weathered stump could check my fall? 
Seeds that are winged, like those of the ash or pine, 
are carried short distances by the wind. Others float 
on lakes, rivers and seas, but the position of this cleft, 
high, deep and facing seaward, made it impossible for 
seeds to reach its depths by any of these agencies. 
Even if the sea washed up seeds on the rocks, there 
were no squirrels to hide them away. The seed must 
have been taken to the crevice by a bird, probably a 
crow, and either stored there for future use, or, vvhat 
is more likely, ejected with other indigestible portions 
of its food. Crows were the only land birds 1 saw on 
the island. They robbed the nests of the sea birds and 
caught shell fish. Crows feed also on acorns, berries, 
wild cherries and plums. Years ago, perhaps, some 
crow having made a tour among the neighboring 
islands, or a trip along the coast of the mainland, vis- 
ited this island in the late summer, found shelter in 
the fissure of the rock, and while there threw up the 
remains of its last meal gathered among the trees. This 
is a habit common to all these birds. Digestion re- 
moves the pulp of the fruit, but leaves the seeds or pits 
unharmed. At least one seed reached a favorable 
crevice, where it vegetated and sent out its roots. 
Finding accumulating fertility in the fine fragments of 
the weathering rock, mingled with the ejecta and the 
excreta of the sea birds which lived in the same fissure, 
it grew apace. It may have been a wild cherry or a 
mulberry tree; at any rate the wood was tough, else this 
story would never have been written. 
In the meantime, more than three thousand miles away, 
a boy was growing up to manhood whose life would one 
day hang upon the ruin of that tree. Is there such a 
thing as chance in the ordering of the universe? As for 
me, I tnust that heaven blessed that tree and made the 
life of that bird one grand sweet song. 
Edward Howe Forbush. 
Floating Down the Mississippi. 
A Rhrcf Town, Helena, Ark. 
One gets his best view of Helena from the foot of 
Crowley's Ridge, which runs down into the alluvial 
bottoms in little spurs. Because the spurs are steep- 
sided, the town does not climb them, but runs back in 
the gullies for considerable distances. Although 
Crowley's Ridge is only a few hundred yards from the 
river, and would be perfectly safe in any river flood, 
practically all the business part— stores and sawmills — 
is protected by the levee alone from high water. But 
when high water does come — as in 1897 — and rises to 
the levee top, every man able to tote a bag of sand is 
forced into "saving the levee." The water has been 
held back in places on the river after it rose upward 
of two feet above the top of the levee, so well laid 
were the sand bags. Unquestionably, the most remark- 
able recurrent natural phenomenon in the United States 
is the Mississippi flood. In times of extreme heights 
the makers and owners of skiffs reap a harvest selling 
them to families in positions exposed to inundation. 
The boats are kept on the porch, or tied to a rear 
window. A $25 skiff will sometimes sell for $75 or $100. 
It seems to me that there is more poetry in the manu- 
facture of wood than in other things. The whole pro- 
cess is like a tragic play — minerals are simply dug out 
of the ground, wool is clipped from sheep glad to be 
rid of the stuff, and cotton is picked from low shrubs 
already almost dead. But with trees it is different. 
They are best for manufacturing when they are in their 
prime, and best able to withstand the storms, fungi and 
insects. Beginning in the chopping, where the trees are 
done to death, through the process of skidding, hauling, 
floating and milling, each course has features most 
capable of idealizing. At Helena,^ the logs come on 
the cars, on barges and on rafts. T watched the great 
derrick sling the big gum logs to the inclined railway 
car from a barge, and then followed the car into one of 
the mills. 
It was a most noisy place, much different from a 
factory where metal is worked. Metals, whether in cogs 
or boiler plates, give piano notes, while wood is like 
