, and three for the long strokes; cut deep, that
the record may be permanent. Statesmen and warriors and poets have
spent their strength in no better cause than this. Is it accomplished?
Return, then, in an hour or two, and seek for this mighty record of a
name. The sea will have swept over it, even as time rolls its effacing
waves over the names of statesmen and warriors and poets. Hark! the
surf-wave laughs at you.

Passing from the beach, I begin to clamber over the crags, making my
difficult way among the ruins of a rampart shattered and broken by the
assaults of a fierce enemy. The rocks rise in every variety of
attitude. Some of them have their feet in the foam and are shagged
halfway upward with seaweed; some have been hollowed almost into
caverns by the unwearied toil of the sea, which can afford to spend
centuries in wearing away a rock, or even polishing a pebble. One huge
rock ascends in monumental shape, with a face like a giant's
tombstone, on which the veins resemble inscriptions, but in an unknown
tongue. We will fancy them the forgotten characters of an antediluvian
race, or else that Nature's own hand has here recorded a mystery
which, could I read her language, would make mankind the wiser and the
happier. How many a thing has troubled me with that same idea! Pass on
and leave it unexplained. Here is a narrow avenue which might seem to
have been hewn through the very heart of an enormous crag, affording
passage for the rising sea to thunder back and forth, filling it with
tumultuous foam and then leaving its floor of black pebbles bare and
glistening. In this chasm there was once an intersecting vein of
softer stone, which the waves have gnawed away piecemeal, while the
granite walls remain entire on either side. How sharply and with what
harsh clamor does the sea rake back the pebbles as it momentarily
withdraws into its own depths! At intervals the floor of the chasm is
left nearly dry, but anon, at the outlet, two or three great waves are
seen struggling to get in at once; two hit the walls athwart, while
one rushes straight through, and all three thunder as if with rage and
triumph. They heap the chasm with a snow-drift of foam and spray.
While watching this scene I can never rid myself of the idea that a
monster endowed with life and fierce energy is striving to burst his
way through the narrow pass. And what a contrast to look through the
stormy chasm and catch a glimpse of the calm bright sea be