of the island there is a natural channel, into which the sea
rushes furiously at high tide: and finding no other vent but the little
crevice we now look down on, is expelled through it in long, thin jets
of spray, with a roaring noise resembling the sound of a gigantic
bellows at work. But the sea is not yet high enough to exhibit this
phenomenon, so the guide takes my toes out of the hole again for me,
just as politely as he put them in; and forthwith leads the way up
higher still--expounding as he goes, the whole art and mystery of
climbing, which he condenses into this axiom:--"Never loose one hand,
till you've got a grip with the other; and never scramble your toes
about, where toes have no business to be."

At last we reach the topmost ridge of the island, and look down upon the
white restless water far beneath, and peep into one or two deserted
gulls' nests, and gather wild asparagus--which I can only describe as
bearing no resemblance at all, that I could discover, to the garden
species. Then, the guide points to another perpendicular rock, farther
out at sea, looming dark and phantom-like in the mist, and tells me that
he was the man who built the cairn of stones on its top: and then he
proposes that we shall go to the opposite extremity of the ridge on
which we stand, and look down into "The Devil's Throat."

This desirable journey is accomplished with the greatest ease on his
part, and with considerable difficulty and delay on mine--for the wind
blows fiercely over us on the height; our rock track is narrow, rugged,
and slippery; the sea roars bewilderingly below; and a single false step
would not be attended with agreeable consequences. Soon, however, we
begin to descend a little from our "bad eminence," and come to a halt
before a wide, tunnelled opening, slanting sharply downwards in the very
middle of the island--a black, gaping hole, into the bottom of which the
sea is driven through some unknown subterranean channel, roaring and
thundering with a fearful noise, which rises in hollow echoes through
the aptly-named "Devil's Throat." About this hole no grass grew: the
rocks rose wild, jagged, and precipitous, all around it. If ever the
ghastly imagery of Dante's terrible "Vision" was realized on earth, it
was realized here.

At this place, close to the mouth of the hole, the guide suggests that
we shall sit down and have a little talk!--and very impressive talk it
is, when he begins the conversation by ba