Cliff

“ On standing beneath the base of the cliff, where not more than nine feet of rock intervened between the sea and my head, the heavy roll of the large boulders, the ceaseless grinding of the pebbles, the fierce thunder of the billows with the crackling and boiling as they rebounded, produced an uproar such as those who heard it can never forget. ”

“ Terribly impressive as is this cliff and wave scenery when the skies are bright and kindly sunshine makes rainbows in the spray, it is doubly so in dark, stormy nights, when, crouching in some hollow on the top of some jutting headland, we may gaze and listen undisturbed in the heart of it. ”

“ This cleft is so disposed that the smooth limestone slabs of its western wall stand higher than the gloomy steps of cliff upon its eastern, and thus these western cliffs take the glare of the morning sunlight upon them, or the brilliance of the moon when she is full or waning in the first part of her course through the night.
The only path by which men can go down that gorge clings to the eastern face of the abyss and is for ever plunged in shadow. ”

“ The long curve of the shore on either side this little fishing port, guarded here by a mighty wall of cliff, here by steep faces of red rock, and bordered here with fields that come down nearly to the water's edge, is fringed with a wide belt of shingle—no smooth stretch of yellow sand, but miles and miles of great grey pebbles, the ruins of old cliffs, the wreck of rocky battlements shattered by the surges, and rolled and shaped and rounded by the rude play of winds and waves. ”

“ On this bit of the wild world's stage are theatrical lightning changes of scenes,—changes that on most mountains would require ten thousand years or more. It is a place of strange and fleeting landscapes; the earth is ever changing like the sky. In wreathed clouds a great cliff is born, stands out bold and new in the sunshine and the blue. The Storm King comes, the thunders echo among crags and cañons, the broken clouds clear away, and the beautiful bow bends above a ruined cliff. ”

“ An uninterrupted path runs, for some three or four miles, along the top of the cliff—the scene constantly changing in its beauty. Below hangs a broken under-cliff, shelving down to the sea, strewed here and there with blocks of gravel, the grass and furze growing on them just as they fell. On the shore stretch long reaches of yellow sand, separated by narrow strips of pebbles, and patches of dark green Barton clay, embossed with shells, and studded with sharks' teeth. ”

“ They spread in long smooth green billows, miles and miles of them, the slopes so gentle that it is delightful to drive or ride on them; only you must be careful not to go near the edge, where the green breaks off suddenly, and a white chalk cliff goes down, down, hundreds of feet, to the blue sea tossing and tumbling below. ”

“ One morning last week, they both went with me to the cliffs—a scene, my dear, in which you would delight beyond measure, but which you cannot visit, except in the spring or autumn. The heat of summer, and clinging dirt of winter, would destroy you. What is called the cliff, is no cliff, nor at all like one, but a beautiful terrace, gently sloping down to the Ouse, and from the brow of which, though not lofty, you have a view of such a valley as makes that which you see from the hills near Olney, and which I have had the honour to celebrate, an affair of no consideration. ”

“ The bold cliff opposite, the mass of rock half way across the stream, which at that point lashed the rapid water into fury, the deeper shadow under the bank, the blaze of light where the trees opened, and flickering intermixture of light and shade where the foliage was thicker, gave exactly the picturesque effect necessary for such a composition as amateurs love. ”

“ On each side rose a cliff that had sheltered it from storms until its trunk had shot upwards so far and so straight and so strong that its green crown could lift itself on and on and bend—blow what might—as proudly and securely as a lily on its stalk in a morning breeze. ”

“ The pair of trim-built flirtlings, walking so daintily down the gravel path, becomes indistinct, and their forms are seen but as the shadows of things dead—treading on air, between three worlds. The few feet of bank above the sea, dignified by the name of cliff, fall back to a gaping chasm, a sheer horror of depths, misty and unfathomable. ”

“ Beyond, again, lies a broad furrow, or ‘longitudinal fold,’ as geologists call it, parallel to the ridges, and then rises the last elevation, a belt of low calcareous hills, on which, here and there among the waves of beech forest, purple or blue with distance, a white cliff retains its local colour and shines like a patch of fresh snow. ”

“ The cliff, black at the base, rising gradually into thinner gray, drove through the air like the edge of a coming world. A chill breeze swept out from the hollow, breathing of waking grasses and of dew. ”

“ I note the double meandering hedge-line that indicates the high road, and beyond again the ground rises in sun-bathed pastures and ploughed land to the gorse-covered cliff edge with its background of pure sky; a little to the right, yet still in full view from my window, is an abrupt dip in the cliff, which shows a great wedge of glittering sea. ”

“ The objects increase in magnitude as we proceed. Great masses of cliff look down on us, their sides and summit clothed with young trees—beech, birch, fir, growing from every crevice. The sand accumulated round their base forms a broad, sloping plinth, overgrown with long grass, creeping weeds, and bushes, through which run little paths leading to caverns, vaults, and passages in the rock. ”

“ A few remarkably fine old trees, a broken rocky red bank, scarcely high enough to be dignified with the name of cliff, at the other side of the river, with undulating meadows, and a distant line of blue hills beyond, made up a scene of much unpretending beauty. ”

“ Wide, and far away, on either hand, the eye could wander along the range, catching first upon some bold mass of hill, or craggy piece of ground, assuming almost the character of a cliff, seen in hard and sharp distinctness, with its plume of trees and coronet of yellow gorse, and then, proceeding onward to wave after wave, the sight rested upon the various projecting points, each softer and softer as they receded, like the memories of early days, till the last lines of the wide sweep left the mind doubtful whether they were forms of earth or clouds, or merely fancy. ”

“ So perpendicular is the cliff at every point, that, these green slopes once reached, the previous singularity of formation and wildness of scenery at once give place to the pastoral. Rocks, columns, caves, and cliffs are all hid from our view; we have gained Nature's upper story, and around us is a perfect calm. Not even the steamer which brought us hither is visible, so effectually do the bold precipices conceal every near thing in their shadow. ”

“ This place can be seen only by those who are up yonder on the cliff, eighty feet above us. But as that cliff is frightfully steep and is on the path to nowhere, no one ever thinks of climbing it, only from time to time a wild goat. ”

“ Underneath the cliff is one of those curious basins hollowed out almost with the regularity of art, in which a vessel of large tonnage might be floated. On the farther side of this basin, the ledges, though jagged and wave-worn, [Pg 116] descend with regular incline, making a sort of platform. On the top of the cliff the rock débris and line of soil show unmistakably that in severe gales the sea leaps to this great height, drenching the summit with salt spray. At such a time the sea must be superb, though awful; for I doubt if a human being could stand erect before such a storm. ”

“ Approaching by Fourvoyerie, you follow a road hewn out of the solid rock, with a rushing mountain stream on the left, and a perpendicular cliff sixty feet high on the right. One inevitably feels an unfamiliar sensation, a blending of wonder and alarm, at sight of that wild landscape. ”

“ When the winter storms slam the roaring billows against the cliff faces and the spray flies up a hundred feet from the exploding mass, the little sea-larks only mount to higher levels of the cliff, never coming inland or forsaking its salt-spattered resting-place. ”

“ Such loess cliffs as no words can describe became commonplace, almost unnoticed sights along the way, cliffs falling gradually from sky to abyss so far below as almost to seem bottomless. All the population for long distances burrowed in human rabbit-warrens dug in these cliffs, row above row of caves, like cities of ten- or twelve-story cliff-dwellings. ”

“ For the first few miles the road clings to the brow of the cliff, twisting round curve after curve, and mounting and falling and mounting again. All the colours of the rainbow are in the landscape. There are headlands of every shade of purple and red, foliage of every tint of green, shadows that [190] are intensely blue, sands that are really golden, and a sea of a colour that has no name. We swing round a curve and see the white houses of Combe Martin wedged between the brown cliffs, and a few minutes later we turn away from the sea and mount the long village street. ”

“ Cliff over cliff for its sides, with rowan and pendent birch boughs,
Here it lies, unthought of above at the bridge and pathway,
Still more enclosed from below by wood and rocky projection. [217]
You are shut in, left alone with yourself and perfection of water,
Hid on all sides, left alone with yourself and the goddess of bathing.
Here, the pride of the plunger, you stride the fall and clear it;
Here, the delight of the bather, you roll in beaded sparklings,
Here into pure green depth drop down from lofty ledges. ”

“ Half a mile lower down, the foundation of the cliff, formed apparently of potter’s blue clay, assumes the appearance of the buttresses of an ancient fortification, projecting to support the huge impending yellowish red cliff above, the base of the whole next the water being a heap of ruins in fantastick and various forms, perpetually tumbling from the cliff, which is beautifully streaked with horizontal lines, separating the different strata of sand and clay of which it is composed. ”

“ Here and there the strand is littered by great boulders which have fallen from the cliff, and the sea washes in among them, cool and translucent. Long lines of net, brown and red, are extended on the gravel, and here and there a man sits patching it, while great numbers more sprawl idle on the warm stones. ”

“ For half an hour we plodded wearily through the débris of rubble-stones, wet soil, and rolling rocks, until finally the top was reached, after which a walk of about a third of a mile upon gently rising ground brings one to the point of observation,—that is, to the verge of the cliff. ”

“ It seems to delight in perching and capering upon the very verge of the most frightful precipices and overhanging cliffs, and in skipping from rock to rock, regardless of the yawning chasms, hundreds of feet in depth, which intervene. In fact, when pursued, it does not hesitate, as I have been assured, to leap from a cliff into a valley a hundred or more feet below, where, lighting upon its huge horns, it springs to its feet uninjured; for the neck is so thick and strong as to support the greatest shock the animal's weight can bring upon it. ”

“ If you ever have occasion to come and look me up, all you have to do is to follow your own creek up to its head, when you will come to a high, unscalable cliff, and right at the foot of that cliff you will see the great pile of fallen rocks in which my house is hidden. ”

“ As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, 190 Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head. ”

“ For my part, I ceased to regret leaving the crest of the cliffs, and found a novel sense of enjoyment in walking along the wide-spread shore, where the surface is smooth and unbroken except here and there a solitary pebble, or a shallow pool, or a patch left rough by the ripples. And all the while a thin film, paler than the rest, as if the surface were in motion, is drifting rapidly with the wind, and producing before your eyes, on the margin of the low cliff, some of the phenomena of blown sands. ”

“ Fields in cultivation and out of it run to the very edge of the cliff—a sombre cliff of soft, dark earth, stained here and there to unprepossessing rusty red, with trickling chalybeate streams, and showing terrible toothmarks of the voracious sea, that feeds its way inland on this part of the coast at the rate of a yard a year. ”

“ An occasional one had a temporary ending against the bottom of a kingly cliff, whose short reign was about to end as its igneous throne was disorganized and decomposed. The storm and darkness continued as I climbed the mountain of short-lived scenes,—a mountain so eagerly moving from its place in the sky to a bed in the sea. The saturation had softened and lubricated the surface ”

“ The strata of these cliffs—which also have bands of yellow—wear away unequally but always in a rounded shape, so that you can see them edgewise, as at a bend, the protuberances take the form of “volutes;” and this will continue for long distances unchanged, as if the cliff had been adorned with gigantic beads of molding. It is one of the most interesting stages of the whole journey. ”

“ Here the view is perfectly free down into the heart of the bright irised throng of comet-like streamers into which the whole ponderous volume of the fall separates, two or three hundred feet below the brow. So glorious a display of pure wildness, acting at close range while cut off from all the world beside, is terribly impressive. A less nerve-trying view may be obtained from a fissured portion of the edge of the cliff about forty yards to the eastward of the fall. ”

“ Our next hope of a solution lies in John Jones, who carried up the coracle. Hail him, and ask him what is on the top of that cliff . . . So, “Plainshe and pogshe, and another Llyn.” Very good. Now, does it not strike you that this whole cliff has a remarkably smooth and plastered look, like a hare’s run up an earthbank? And do you not see that it is polished thus only over the lake? that as soon as the cliff abuts on the downs right and left, it forms pinnacles, caves, broken angular boulders? ”