Almost all delicacy is a relative thing; and the man who repines at the luxuries of a well-served table, starves not for want, but from comparison. The luxuries of the poor are indeed coarse to us, yet still they are luxuries to those ignorant of better; and it is probable enough that a Kilda or a Feroe man may be found to exist, outdoing Apicius himself in consulting the pleasures of the table. Indeed, if it be true that such meat as is the most dangerously earned is the sweetest, no man can dine so luxuriously as these, as none venture so hardily in the pursuit of a dinner. In Jacobson's History of the Feroe Islands, we have an account of the method in which those birds are taken; and I will deliver it in his own simple manner.

"It cannot be expressed with what pains and danger they take these birds in those high steep cliffs, whereof many are two hundred fathoms high. But there are men apt by nature, and fit for the work, who take them usually in two manners; they either climb from below into these high promontories, that are as steep as a wall, or they let themselves down with a rope from above. When they climb from below, they have a pole five or six ells long, with an iron hook at the end, which they that are below in the boat, or on the cliff, fasten to the man's girdle, helping him up thus to the highest place where he can get footing; afterwards they also help up another man; and thus several climb up as high as possibly they can; and where they find difficulty, they help each other up, by thrusting one another up with their poles. When the first hath taken footing, he draws the other up to him by the rope fastened to his waist; and so they proceed till they come to the place where the birds build, they there go about as well as they can, in those dangerous places; the one holding the rope at one end and fixing himself to the rock, the

4

HISTORY OF

other going at the other end from place to place. If it should happen that he chanceth to fall the other that stands firm keeps him up, and helps him up again. But if he passeth safe, he likewise fastens himself till the other has passed the same dangerous place also. Thus they go about the cliffs after birds as they please. It often happeneth, however the more is the pity, that when one doth not stand fast enough, or is not sufficiently strong to hold up the other in his fall, that they both fall down and are killed. In this manner some do perish every year.

وو

Mr. Peter Clanson, in his description of Norway, writeth, that there was anciently a law in that country, that whosoever climbed so on the cliffs that he fell down and died, if the body was found before burial his next kinsman should go the same way; but if he durst not, or could not do it, the dead body was not then to be buried in sanctified earth, as the per'son was too full of temerity, and his own destroyer.

"When the fowlers are come, in the manner aforesaid, to the birds within the cliffs, where people seldom come, the birds are so tame that they take them with their hands; for they will not readily leave their young. But when they are wild, they cast a net, with which they are provided, over them, and entangle them therein. In the mean time, there lieth a boat beneath in the sea, wherein they cast the birds killed; and in this manner they can, in a short time, fill a boat with fowl. When it is pretty fair weather, and there is good fowling, the fowlers stay in the cliffs seven or eight days together; for there are here and there holes in the rocks, where they can safely rest, and they have meat let down to them with a line from the top of the mountain. In the mean time some go every day to them, to fetch home what they have taken.

"Some rocks are so difficult that they can in no

manner get unto them from below; wherefore they seek to come down thereunto from above. For this purpose they have a rope, eighty or a hundred fathoms long, made of hemp, and three fingers thick. The fowler maketh the end of this fast about his waist, and between his legs, so that he can sit. thereon; and is thus let down, with the fowling-staff in his hand. Six men hold by the rope, and let him easily down, laying a large piece of wood on the brink of the rock, upon which the rope glideth, that it may not be worn to pieces by the hard and rough edge of the stone. They have, besides, another small line, that is fastened to the fowler's body; on which he pulleth, to give them notice how they should let down the great rope, either lower or higher; or to hold still, that he may stay in the place whereunto he is come. Here the man is in great danger, because of the stones that are loosened from the cliff by the swinging of the rope, and he cannot avoid them. To remedy this in some measure, he hath usually on his head a seaman's thick and shaggy cap, which defends him from the blows of the stones if they be not too big, and then it costeth him his life; nevertheless, they continually put themselves in that danger, for the wretched body's food sake, hoping in God's mercy and pro tection, unto which the greatest part of them do devoutly recommend themselves when they go to work: otherwise, they say, there is no other great danger in it except that it is a toilsome and artifi-. cial labour; for, he that hath not learned to be so let down, and is not used thereto, is turned about with the rope, so that he soon groweth giddy, and can do nothing; but he that hath learned the art, considers it as a sport, swings himself on the rope, sets his feet against the rock, casts himself some fathous from thence, and shoots himself to what place

he will; he knows where the birds are, he understands how to sit on the line in the air, and how to hold the fowling-staff in his hand, striking therewith the birds that come or fly away; and when there are holes in the rocks, and it stretches itself out, making underneath as a ceiling, under which the birds are, he knoweth how to shoot himself in among them, and there take firm footing. There, when he is in these holes, he maketh himself loose of the rope, which he fastens to a crag of the rock, that it may not slip from him to the outside of the cliff. He then goes about in the rock, taking. the fowl, either with his hands or the fowling-staff. Thus, when he hath killed as many birds as he thinks fit, he ties them in a bundle, and fastens them to a little rope, giving a sign, by pulling, that they should draw them up. When he has wrought. thus the whole day, and desires to get up again, he sitteth once more upon the great rope, giving a new sign that they should pull him up, or else he worketh himself up, climbing along the rope, with his girdle full of birds. It is also usual, where there are not folks enough to hold the great rope, for the fowler to drive a post sloping into the earth, and to make a rope fast thereto, by which he lets himself down without any body's help, to work in the manner aforesaid. Some rocks are so formed that the person can go into their cavities by land.

"These manners are more terrible and dangerous .to see than to describe; especially if one considers the steepness and height of the rocks, it seeming impossible for a man to approach them, much less to climb or descend. In some places the fowlers are seen climbing where they can only fasten the ends of their toes and fingers, not shunning such places, though there be a hundred fathom between them and the sea. It is a dear meat for these poor people, for

which they must venture their lives; and many, after long venture, do at last perish therein.

"When the fowl is brought home, a part thereof is eaten fresh; another part, when there is much taken, being hung up for winter provision. The feathers are gathered to make merchandise of, for other expenses. The inhabitants get a great many of these fowls, as God giveth his blessing and fit weather. When it is dark and hazy, they take most, for then the birds stay in the rocks; but in clear weather, and hot sun-shine, they seek the sea. When they prepare to depart for the season, they keep themselves most there, sitting on the cliffs towards the sea-side, where people get at them sometimes with boats, and take them with fowling-staves."

Such is the account of this historian; but we are not to suppose that all the birds caught in this manner are of the gull kind: on the contrary, numbers of them are of the penguin kind; auks, puffins and guillemots. These all come, once a season, to breed in these recesses; and retire in winter to fish in more southern climates..

CHAPTER VII.

of the PENGUIN KIND; AND FIRST OF THE GREAT MAGELLANIC PENGUIN.

THE gulls are long winged swift flyers, that hover over the most extensive seas, and dart down upon such fish as approach too near the surface. The penguin kind are but ill fitted for flight, and still less for walking. Every body must have seen the awkward manner in which a duck, either wild or tame, attempts to change place; they must recollect with

VOL. IV.-F·