wling into my ear (and down the
Devil's Throat at the same time) to make himself heard above the fierce
roaring beneath us. Now, his tale is of tremendous jets of water which
he has seen, during the storms of winter, shot out of the hole before
which we sit, into the creek of the sea below--now, he tells me of a
shipwreck off Asparagus Island, of half-drowned sailors floating ashore
on pieces of timber, and dashed out to sea again just as they touched
the strand, by a jet from the Devil's Throat--now, he points away in the
opposite direction, under one of the steeple-shaped rocks, and speaks of
a chase after smugglers that began from this place; a desperate chase,
in which some of the smugglers' cargo, but not one of the smugglers
themselves, was seized--now, he talks of another great hole in the
landward rocks, where the sea may be seen boiling within: a hole into
which a man who was fishing for fragments of a wreck fell and was
drowned; his body being sucked away through some invisible channel,
never to be seen again by mortal eyes.

Anon, the guide's talk changes from tragedy to comedy. He begins to
recount odd adventures of his own with strangers. He tells me of a huge
fat woman who was got up to the top of Asparagus Island, by the easiest
path, and by the exertions of several guides; who, left to herself,
gasped, reeled, and fell down immediately; and was just rolling off,
with all the momentum of sixteen stone, over the precipice below her,
when she was adroitly caught, and anchored fast to the ground, by the
ankle of one leg and the calf of the other. Then he speaks of an elderly
gentleman, who, while descending the rocks with him, suddenly stopped
short at the most dangerous point, giddy and panic-stricken, pouring
forth death-bed confessions of all his sins, and wildly refusing to move
another inch in any direction. Even this man the guide got down in
safety at last, by making stepping places of his hands, on which the
elderly gentleman lowered himself as on a ladder, ejaculating
incoherently all the way, and trembling in great agony long after he had
been safely landed on the sands.

This last story ended, it is settled that we shall descend again to the
beach. Stimulated by the ease with which my worthy leader goes down
beneath me, I get over-confident in my dexterity, and begin to slip
here, and slide there, and come to awkward pauses at precipitous
places, in what would be rather an alarming manner, but fo