r that to clinch the exploit by getting on
land, which is yet a harder step. Because the steep of the ground, like
a staircase void of stairs, stands facing you, and the cliff upon either
side juts up close, to forbid any flanking movement, and the scanty
scarp denies fair start for a rush at the power of the hill front. Yet
here must the heavy boats beach themselves, and wallow and yaw in the
shingly roar, while their cargo and crew get out of them, their gunwales
swinging from side to side, in the manner of a porpoise rolling, and
their stem and stern going up and down like a pair of lads at seesaw.

But after these heavy boats have endured all that, they have not found
their rest yet without a crowning effort. Up that gravelly and gliddery
ascent, which changes every groove and run at every sudden shower, but
never grows any the softer--up that the heavy boats must make clamber
somehow, or not a single timber of their precious frames is safe. A big
rope from the capstan at the summit is made fast as soon as the tails of
the jackasses (laden with three cwt. of fish apiece) have wagged their
last flick at the brow of the steep; and then with "yo-heave-ho" above
and below, through the cliffs echoing over the dull sea, the groaning
and grinding of the stubborn tug begins. Each boat has her own special
course to travel up, and her own special berth of safety, and she knows
every jag that will gore her on the road, and every flint from which she
will strike fire. By dint of sheer sturdiness of arms, legs, and lungs,
keeping true time with the pant and the shout, steadily goes it with
hoist and haul, and cheerily undulates the melody of call that rallies
them all with a strong will together, until the steep bluff and the
burden of the bulk by masculine labor are conquered, and a long row of
powerful pinnaces displayed, as a mounted battery, against the fishful
sea. With a view to this clambering ruggedness of life, all of these
boats receive from their cradle a certain limber rake and accommodating
curve, instead of a straight pertinacity of keel, so that they may ride
over all the scandals of this arduous world. And happen what may to
them, when they are at home, and gallantly balanced on the brow line of
the steep, they make a bright show upon the dreariness of coast-land,
hanging as they do above the gullet of the deep. Painted outside with
the brightest of scarlet, and inside with the purest white, at a little
way off th