Kitabı oku: «Adventures of Working Men. From the Notebook of a Working Surgeon», sayfa 8
Chapter Twelve.
My Patient the Captain
Captain Greening as he was called was a curious old patient of mine whom I had to attend pretty regularly when I lived at Basingstoke. His title of captain was derived from the fact that he had in his younger days been captain of a barge plying along the canal. His was a chronic case that was incurable, so I rarely called upon him at a busy time, for nothing pleased the old fellow better than buttonholing me for a long talk.
“Look ye here, doctor,” he’d say, “I like you, and it’s a pleasure to be ill that it is, so as to have you to talk to.”
I believe that any good return would have done as well but I did not say so, and we remained the best of friends.
I called upon him one day at his cottage where he very comfortably enjoyed the snug winter of his days, and found him so excited over a newspaper that he forgot all about his asthma, and could only answer my questions with others.
“Have you seen about this Regent’s Park accident?” he exclaimed.
“Yes,” I replied, “I read it all yesterday morning. Terrible affair.”
“Awful, only it might have been so much worse. There sit down, doctor. You know I used to have a canal boat – monkey boat we called ’em, because they are so long and thin.”
“Yes, I know it,” I said.
“Ah, and I’ve had a load of powder scores o’ times both in monkey boats and lighters on the Thames. You ain’t in a hurry to-day, doctor?”
“Not particularly,” I said.
“That’s good,” said the old fellow. “Asthma’s better. Look here, doctor, I might have been blown up just as those poor chaps was at any time, and I nearly was once.”
“What, blown up by powder!”
“To be sure I was. Look here, I take my long clay pipe off the table – so; I pulls the lead tobacco box towards me – so; I fills my pipe-bowl – so; and then I pulls open this neat little box, made like somebody’s first idea of a chest of drawers, takes out one of these little splints of wood, rubs it on the table, no good – on the floor, no good – on the sole of my boot, no good; but when I gives it a snap on the side of a box – fizz, there’s a bright little light, the wood burns, and I am holding it to the bowl of my pipe, drawing in the smoke and puffing it out again, looking at you pleasantly through the thin blue cloud, and – how are you?
“Times is altered since I was a lad, I can tell you. Why, as you know, that there match wouldn’t light not nowhere but on the box, so as to be safe and keep children from playing with ’em and burning themselves, or people treading on ’em and setting fire to places; and what I’ve got to say is this, that it’s a precious great convenience – so long as you’ve got the box with you – and a strange sight different to what it was when I was a boy.
“Now I’ll just tell you how it was then, whether you know or whether you don’t know. Lor’ bless you, I’ve seen my old aunt do it lots o’ times. There used to be a round, flat tin box, not quite so big as the top of your hat; and the lid on it used to be made into a candlestick, with a socket to hold a dip. Then into this box they used to stuff a lot of old cotton rag, and set light to it – burn it till it was all black, and the little sparkles was all a-running about in it, same as you’ve seen ’em chasing one another in a bit o’ burnt paper. Down upon it would come a piece o’ flat tin and smother all the sparkles out, ’cos no air could get to ’em; and then they’d put on the lid, and there was your tinder-box full o’ tinder.
“Next, you know, you used to have a piece o’ soft iron, curled round at each end, so as you took hold on it, and held it like a knuckle-duster; and also you had a bit o’ common flint, such as you might pick up in any road as wasn’t paved with granite; and, lastly, you had a bundle – not a box, mind, but a bundle – of matches, and them was thin splints o’ wood, like pipe lights, pointed at the ends same’s wood palings, and dipped in brimstone. Them’s what the poor people used to sell about the streets, you know – a dozen of ’em spread out and tied like a lady’s fan – in them days, and made ’em theirselves, they did. A piece o’ even splitting wood and a penn’orth o’ brimstone was a stock in trade then, on which many a poor creetur lived – helped by a bit o’ begging.
“Say, then, you wanted a light – mind, you know, those was the days when the sojers used to carry the musket they called Brown Bess, as went off with a flint and steel, long before the percushin cap times – well, say you wanted a light, you laid your match ready, took your tinder-box off the chimneypiece, opened it, took the bit o’ flint in one hand and the steel or iron in the other, and at it you went – nick, nick, nick, nick, nick, with the sparks flying like fun, till one of ’em dropped on your black tinder, and seemed to lie there like a tiny star. You were in luck’s way if you did that at the end of five minutes; and then you made yourself into a pair o’ human bellows, and blew away at that spark, till it began to glow and get bigger, when you held to it one of the brimstone matches, and that began to melt and burn blue, and flamed up; when the chances was as the stifling stuff got up your nose, and down your throat, and you choked, and sneezed, and puffed the match out, and had to begin all over again.
“Well, that’s a long rigmarole about old ways of getting a light; but I mention it because we’d got one o’ them set-outs on board, and that’s the way we used to work. You know, after that came little bottles in which you dipped a match, and lit it that way – in fosseros, I think you call it. Next came what was a reg’lar wonder to people then – lucifers, which in them days was flat-headed matches, which you put between a piece of doubled-up stuff, like a little book cover, and pulled ’em out smart. Soon after, some one brought out them as you rubbed on the bottoms of the box on sand-paper, and they called them congreves; but by degrees that name dropped out, and we got back to lucifers for name, and now folks never says nothing but matches.
“In the days I’m telling you about, I was capen of a lighter – a big, broad, flat barge, working on the Thames; not one of your narrow monkey boats as run on the canals, though it was the blowing up of the Tilbury the other day as put me in mind of what I’m going to tell you in my long-winded, roundabout fashion. But I s’pose you ain’t in no hurry, so let me go on in my own way.
“You see, your genuine lighterman ain’t a lively sort of a chap, the natur’ of his profession won’t lot him be; for he’s always doing things in a quiet, slow, easy-going fashion. Say he’s in the river: well, he tides up and he tides down, going as slow as you like, and only giving a sweep now and then with a long oar, to keep the barge’s head right, and stay her from coming broadside on to the piers o’ the bridges.
“Well, that’s slow work, says you; and so it is. And it ain’t no better when your bargeman gets into a canal, for then he’s only towed by a horse as ain’t picked out acause he’s a lovely Arab as gallops fifty mile an hour – one and a half or two’s about his cut, and that ain’t lively. As for your new-fangled doing with your steam tugs, a-puffing, and a-blowing, and as smoking, like foul chimneys on a foggy day, what I got to say about them is as it’s disgustin’, and didn’t ought to be allowed. Just look at ’em on the river now, a-drawing half-a-dozen barges full o’ coal at once, and stirring up the river right to the bottom! Ah! there warn’t not no such doings when I was young, and a good job too.
“Well, as I was going to tell you, I was capen of the Betsy– as fine a lighter as you’d ha’ found on the river in them days, and I’d got two hands aboard with me. There was Billy Jinks – Gimlet we used to call him, because he squinted so. I never did see a fellow as could squint like Billy could. He’d got a werry good pair o’ eyes, on’y they was odd uns and didn’t fit. They didn’t belong to him, you know, and was evidently put in his head in a hurry when he were made, and he couldn’t do nothing with ’em. Them eyes of his used to do just whatever they liked, and rolled and twissened about in a way as you never did see; and I’ve often thought since as it was them eyes o’ Billy’s as made him take to drink – and drink he could, like a fish.
“T’other chap was Bob Solly – Toeboy they used to call him on the river, acause of his lame foot and the thick sole he used to wear to make one leg same length as t’other; and perhaps, after all, it was Bob’s toe as made him such a drinking chap, and not the example as Gimlet set him. Anyhow, that there don’t matter; only when I’m a-telling a thing I likes to be exact, as one used to be with the inwoices o’ the goods one had to deliver up or down the river.
“Well, I was going up and down the river with all sorts o’ goods, from ships, and wharves, and places – sundry things, you know, for I never had no dealings with coals – and one day, down the river, we loaded up with barrels off a wharf down by Tilbury – not the Tilbury as was blowed up the other day, ’cause that was only a monkey boat, but Tilbury down the river, you know; where there’s the fort, and soldiers, and magazines, and all them sort o’ things.
“Loaded up we were, and the little barrels all lying snug, and covered up with tarpaulins, and us a-waiting for the tide to come – for we was going up to Dumphie’s Wharf, up there at Isleworth – when Bob Solly comes up to me, and he says, says he —
“‘Guv’nor,’ he says, ‘we ain’t got no taties.’
“‘Well, Bob,’ I says, ‘then hadn’t you better get some?’
“‘Yes,’ he says, ‘I will.’
“And then Gimlet, who had been standing by, he says —
“‘And we ain’t got no herrins.’
“The long and the short on it was that them two chaps goes ashore to buy some herrins and some taties, so as we could cook ’em aboard in the cabin, where we bargees reg’lar kind o’ lived, you know.
“I ought to ha’ knowed better; but I’d got an old Weekly Dispatch, as was the big paper in them days, and I was a-spelling it over about the corrynation o’ King George the Fourth, and the jolly row there’d been up by Westminster Abbey when Queen Carryline went up to the doors and said as she wanted to be crowned too. I might ha’ knowed what ud follow, but I was so wrapped up in that there old noosepaper, not being a fast reader, that I never thought about it; and consequently, when it was about low tide, and time for us to go, them two chaps was nowhere.
“‘Seen anything o’ my mates?’ I hollers to a chap ashore, for I was now out in the stream.
“‘They’re up at the Blue Posties,’ he says. ‘Shall I fetch ’em?’
“‘Yes, and be hanged to ’em!’ I says; and I goes down to the cabin, vexed like, gets hold o’ the flint and steel and my pipe, and was going to fill it, when I remembered what we took aboard, and I put ’em all back in the cupboard.
“Quarter of an hour arter, just as the tide was beginning to turn, them two chaps comes aboard, reg’lar tossicated, not to say drunk, and werry wild I was, and made ’em go down into the cabin, thinking as they’d sleep it off; and then, casting loose, I put out one of the sweeps, and we began to float gently up the river.
“I got on very comfortably that afternoon, never fouling any of the ships lying in the Pool, getting well under London Bridge, and old Blackfriars with its covered-in seats like small domes of St. Paul’s cut in half, and so on and under Westminster Bridge, which was very much like the one at Blackfriars, and on and on, till the tide was at its height, when I let go the anchors and went to look at them two chaps; when, instead of being all fight, I found as the money as ought to have bought herrins and taties had gone in a bottle of stuff which one of ’em had smuggled in under his jacket, and they was wuss than ever.
“Of course I was precious wild; but as it’s waste o’ words to talk to men in that state, I saved it up for them, went forward, and rolled myself up in my jacket, pulled a bit o’ tarpaulin over me, wished for a pipe, and then began to think.
“Now, I suppose that I got thinking too hard, as I sat there looking at the lights, blinking here and there ashore, as the tide ran hissing down by the sides of the barge; for after a time I got too tired to think, and I must have gone off fast asleep, for I got dreaming of all sorts of horrible things through being in an uncomfortable position, and among others – I suppose all on account of twenty ton of gunpowder I had on board – I dreamed as it had blown up, and I was in our little boat, rowing about on the river amongst burnt wood and bits of barge and powder barrels, picking up the pieces of myself.
“Yes, rowing about and picking up the pieces of myself; because, I said to myself, I ought to be buried decently, and not be left to go floating about up and down with the tide. I had a hard job, I remember – now fishing up a foot, now a leg, and now pieces of my body. How it was I never seemed to ask myself, that I could be rowing about and fishing myself up; but there it was, and I got quite cross at last because my head gave me so much trouble: for every time I reached at it with one of the oars it bobbed under water, and came up again, and rolled over and over, and seemed to laugh at and wink at me, till, in a passion, I gave it a heavy tap with the oar, and it went under again, and came up on the other side of the boat, bobbing up and down like a big apple.
“‘Now what’s the good of making a fool of yourself?’ I says. ‘Why don’t you come in the boat along with the rest of the pieces?’
“Then it opened its mouth, and says out loud —
“‘I’m as thirsty as a fish.’
“Now, the idea of that head of mine being thirsty, when it was swallowing water out there in the river, so tickled me that I began to laugh, and that laughing woke me, all of a cold shiver, to find it very dark, and these words seeming still to be buzzing in my ears —
“‘I’m as thirsty as a fish.’
“What followed seems to me now just like some horrible nightmare; for as I sat there, in the forepart of the boat, I could just make out Bob Solly and Gimlet bending over a little keg, evidently as drunk as owls; and I saw in a flash that they’d been busy with an augur, and bored a hole in it, thinking it was spirit of some kind, when it was fine grain powder.
“What did I do? Nothing; but come all over of a cold sweat, the big drops ran down my face, and I felt as if I couldn’t move. I knew well enough what they’d done – they’d pulled up the tarpaulin, and dragged out a cask, and were going as they thought to drink; and as I saw them struggle along towards the cabin, I thought of my dream, and felt that the barge would be blown to pieces.
“I wanted to jump overboard, and swim for my life; and even then I remember smiling, and wondering whether I should go in a boat and pick myself up. Then I tried to go after them, to shout, to do something; but the bones seemed to have been taken out of my body, and for the first time in my life I knew what it was to be in a horrible state of fear.
“That went, though, at last, and I stood up shivering and made for the side. I looked at our distance from shore – about fifty yards – and kicked off my boots. I raised my hands, and in another moment I should have plunged overboard, when something seemed to say to me ‘You coward!’ and I stopped short.
“Of course: I was capen, and if I deserted the barge up she must go, and Lord help the poor people ashore.
“But if I stayed?
“Well, I might save ’em.
“I ran aft along the side of the barge, feeling sure that it was all a dream, for the men were out of sight; but when I reached the cabin hatchway I heard words as chilled me right through.
“‘It’s awful queer, Bob,’ Gimlet hiccupped; ‘the stuff’s running out all over my hands, and yet it ain’t wet, and it tastes salt.’
“‘We’ll soon see what it’s made on, lad,’ says Gimlet, thickly; and then I had the old nightmare feeling come over me, and couldn’t stir – couldn’t speak, only listen, with the thought of twenty ton of powder aboard and there, with the loose powder running all over them, was my mate Gimlet busy with tinder-box, flint, and steel.
“Nick – nick – nick – nick!
“And I couldn’t move.
“Nick – nick – nick – nick!
“I tried to get down the hatchway, but hadn’t a muscle that would work.
“Nick – nick – nick – nick!
“There was a stoppage – a faint glow, as of a man blowing the tinder, and I became myself again, and mad with fear, I crawled through the trap.
“Then there was the sputtering and blue burning of a brimstone match; and I saw the faces of the two men quite plain.
“The splint blazed up.
“‘We’ll soon see what it’s like now,’ said Gimlet, thickly. And he lowered the burning match, and in that one moment I saw the barrel at one side of the cabin, and the powder that had run out of the hole they had bored running about over the white floor zig-zag, like a black snake, and making a reg’lar train.
“At that same moment a burnt piece fell from the burning match, the train fired and began to run over the floor, and I threw myself between it and the barrel flat on the planks.
“I can’t tell you how it was, only that some one uttered a horrible yell, there was the sharp flash and hiss of the powder, my face was scorched as I lay flat, and the place was full of smoke and as dark as pitch.
“It seemed to be an hour, it may only have been a few seconds, when I heard them two rush up on the little deck; then there were two heavy splashes, and I knew that they were swimming ashore and I was alone.
“I daren’t move, for the powder cask was touching me, and, for aught I knew, there might be scores of sparks on my clothes. And so I lay there, expecting my dream to come true each moment, till I could bear it no more, for a giddy feeling came over me, and I suppose I fainted.
“When I came to, the smoke had cleared away, but, all the same, I daren’t move for long enough; and at last, when my sense – what was left – told me that if there had been any danger it would have been over before now, I roused myself and edged a little away. I felt ready to faint again; but by degrees I got away, went on deck and threw my coat into the river, looked myself all over, and then, fighting hard against the wish to jump over and swim ashore, I forced myself to the hatchway, looked down to see all black there as pitch, and then I knelt down on that bit of a deck and said the first prayer to God as I’d said for years.
“At daylight next morning I went below again; and I could see how we were saved; for my throwing myself down had driven the light dust two ways, and what with that and my body, the train when fired had not gone within two feet of the barrel.
“It was a horrible shock, though; and I didn’t get over it for years. I used to dream night after night about trying to get that bobbing head of mine into the boat, and then I used to cry out and fancy I saw the flash; but I got over it in time, and seldom had the horrible dream any more. But I had it the night after the Tilbury went, for I thought a good deal that day about my lucky escape, and that upset me more than it did Toeboy and Gimlet, for they went ashore that night, and next day were tossicated as ever.
“It’s dangerous work, though, with that powder; and, speaking as an old man, I say thank God I’m out of the trade.”
Chapter Thirteen.
My Patient the Quarryman
I had a very pleasant visit once to Cornwall where a resident practitioner who was an old friend asked me to come down and take his practice for a couple of months.
This I did, and thoroughly enjoyed Cornwall and the common people with their sing-song, intonation, and genuine honest simple ways. During my leisure, I used to fish for mackerel and a dozen other wholesome fish that, freshly cooked, were delicious at the table. Then I had many a pleasant boating trip along the coast, the last being in company with a very intelligent workman whom I had had to attend for a bad bruise on one arm, caused by the falling over against it of a huge block of granite in the yard of the works where he was employed.
Ezra Hanson was never tired of showing me the interesting bits of the rugged shore if he could get me out with him for guide, and whenever I had time, nothing pleased me better than placing myself in his care either for a scramble amongst the rocks, picking up specimens, or out in a boat skirting the shore.
I was out with him one day in the neighbourhood of the Lizard when he gave me a very interesting account of an accident that befel him, and I give it here nearly in his own words.
“We were out in a little boat rising and falling upon the heaving tide under the shadow of the mighty cliffs that bound the shore, looking awfully forbidding to a ship on a stormy night when the sea is covered with foam; and as I sat almost awe stricken at the grandeur of the scene, and the beauty of the sky reflections in the water, he began to run on picturing all he could to me in the most vivid way, as he illustrated it so to speak by pointing out the locality as it lay before me dotted with lichen and the sea birds that made their homes upon the shelves of the massive racks.
“‘Look sir,’ he said, pointing as we landed, ‘see what a change there is in the colour. Now we come to the serpentine. That last black jagged rock you learned people call trap or basalt, sir; and this, that we come to now, serpentine. We have it here in great variety as to colour; but mostly it is of a deep blood-red, or a dark green, with white veins of steatite or soapstone running through it. That yonder’s the quarry where I work. And now I’ll show you the spot where I fell from; and when we get on to that point which runs out towards those rocks – there, where the water is all silvery foam – I can show you again the mouth of the cave; for it’s almost underneath our feet now; while here – you see this chink, just as if the rock had been split at some time – you could lower yourself down through it, and get into the cave; but I never yet saw a man bold enough to do it. I came up it, and that was enough for me. Now, listen at the roaring of the sea as it runs up the cave. It’s all dark below there, or you might see the water rushing, and bubbling, and foaming in. Perhaps you’re strong-nerved, and can stand it – I can’t. It makes me shudder.’
“Five years ago I came down here as foreman, for we were busy at that time quarrying this serpentine rock for ornamental masonry; and my duty then was to investigate a bit here and there along the face of the rock for good veins of the stone. What we want, you see, are richly-marked, showy pieces that will out and polish well; some being firm and good, but when quarried out not having the requisite qualities for our work. Many a time I’ve been all along the face of this precipice, climbing from ledge to ledge, holding on to a rope fastened round my waist, and chipping the rock here and there. Now I’d swing ever so far to reach a vein, then I’d be lowered down, then drawn up; for I always took care to have three stout and true men up above at the end of the rope; while, for further security, they’d drive a strong pin into the rock round which to twist the rope.
“Fine veins I’ve marked down, too, at different times; and, from being used to the work, our men will go on chipping and working away as coolly as can be when the waves come thundering in, and then, striking the face of the rock, fly up in a storm of spray, while the noise is deafening. Of course they can’t do that when the wind reaches them; but when sheltered they’ll take no more notice of the waves than if they were so much smooth grass just beneath them, instead of perhaps a hundred feet below.
“Now, lie down here, and crawl just up to the edge and look over. There, that’s a fine sight, isn’t it? There’s no fear, for you can’t fall, even if you turn giddy. Now, you might drop a plumb-line from here right into those silvery breakers just beneath us, and the length of that line would be two hundred and thirty feet. Fine sight this, isn’t it? There’s the Lizard, with its lights; there to the left’s Black’s Head; and in front of you, rock after rock fighting against the long rolling waves that never cease their attacks, but as one is broken and falls back into the ocean in hundreds of little waterfalls, another comes tearing in to try and wear down the rock. When the sea is very calm, even from this height you may look down into the beautiful clear water and see the rocks beneath, covered in places where they are sheltered by richly-coloured seaweeds. But now watch carefully where I drop this big piece of rock. There’s a ledge down there, about a hundred feet above the sea – a spot where I stood twice: the first time by daylight, with a rope round my body; the second time by moonlight, and without the rope. Now watch, and when the stone strikes it will be on the shelf I mean; for I think I can hit the spot, though, looking down, one ledge is so confused with the other that I don’t think I could point it out so that you could understand. Mind, too, when the stone splits up into pieces, and you will see the birds fly out in all directions.
“There, I thought I could do it. That’s the ledge, and there they go, gulls and shag; but they don’t mind; and after screaming like that for a few minutes, and having a circle round, they’ll settle down again as if they had not been disturbed.
“Well, that was the ledge I stood on one day, after slowly clambering down, with a rope round me, in search of a good, well-marked vein. Now, as a matter of course, we should not have set men to work there, for it was too awkward a spot; but after swinging here, pulling there, and gradually making my way along the face of the cliff, I saw that ledge overhanging the mouth of the cave; and shouting to the men above to hold on tightly, I felt so strong a desire to stand there, that I went on and on – now ascending a little way, now scrambling down. Twice I was about to give it up; but after breathing a bit I had another try, for I had a regular climbing fit upon me. And at last there I stood; and then sat with my legs dangling over the precipice till I felt rested; and then, half-drawn, half-climbing, I made my way up. Then thoroughly satisfied that we should do no good in that direction, I went back to my lodgings, with the intention of exploring somewhere else the next day.
“I went to bed very tired that night, and well recollect lying down; but my next sensation was that of cold, and a deep roaring noise seemed ringing in my ears. I tried to think of what it could be, for I was too sleepy to feel startled; and, stretching out my hands, they fell upon the cold, bare rock. I was thoroughly awake the next moment, though I could not believe it; and I closed and opened my eyes again and again, because it all seemed so utterly impossible. I felt that I must be asleep, and that this was a vivid dream – the consequence of the excitement and exertion of the previous day. So convinced was I that it was a dream, that I began to wonder to myself how long it would last; while ever came, as it were, right beneath me, that deep, heavy, rolling roar of the waves, as they tumbled in over the rocks, dashed into the caves, and then poured out again.
“At last I slowly opened my eyes, battling all the while with my thoughts to make them take the direction I wanted. But all in vain; for as I looked there was the moon shining full upon me; the cool night breeze was blowing; and right below me, just as we are looking upon them now, only five times as rough, were the foam-topped waves rushing and beating in.
“I tried again to think that it was a dream; but a cold shiver ran through me – a shudder of fear and dread – and there I was digging my nails into the crevices of the rock, whose grey moss crumbled under my fingers; while, with a horrible dread seeming to turn me into stone itself, I drew up my legs, and cowered close to the rock, ready even to seize anything with my teeth if it would have made me more secure.
“That fit of horrible fear only lasted a few minutes, and then I seemed to recover my nerve; and, standing up, I began to wonder how I had come there, and to try and recall the ledges I had climbed along the day before. I had recognised the shelf again, from its peculiar shape, and the steep rock at the end which stopped further travelling in one direction; while for a moment I fancied that a trick had been played me, and that I had been lowered down by a rope. Under the influence of that thought, I shouted two or three times; but my voice seemed lost, and the cold chill of fear began to creep over me again, so that I felt that if I wished to save my life I must fight for it. So, thoroughly awakened to my danger, and now feeling that from the excitement of what I had gone through I must have climbed down in my sleep, I cheered myself on with the idea that if I could climb down I could climb up again; and then I cautiously made my way to the end of the ledge, when a thought struck me, and I again sat down.
“Was it possible that I had climbed up?
“That wanted a little thinking out; and shivering there in my shirt and trousers, with my bare feet bleeding, and making the rock feel slippery, I sat on thinking; while the more I thought, the more possible it seemed that I had climbed up from the ledge of rock that ran along to the cave beneath.
“Trifling as this may seem, it acted as a stimulant to me; for I could see pretty clearly in the moonlight, and it struck me that every foot I lowered myself would make my position less perilous, while if I climbed up the distance would be still greater to fall. Not a thing to study much in such great heights, where a fall of one or two hundred feet can make but little difference to the unfortunate; but it cheered me then, and, rousing up, I began to look where I had better begin.
“The ledge beneath me, as I looked down, did not seem far – for, as you can see, these cliffs appear to be built up of great regular courses of stone; and I began to let myself down over the side – first my legs; then I was hanging over to my chest; then, with my fingers only clinging to the rough rock, I was resting with my toes upon a point; but feeling my hands giving way, I lowered myself yet more and more, still feeling about with my feet, which could now find no rest.
