44
Art of Travel.
does not hold so fast." A loop or hoop embracing the body of the climber and the tree, is a helpful addition. Large nails carried in a bag slung round the waist, to be driven into the bare trunk of the tree, will facilitate its ascent. Gimlets may be used for the same purpose. High walls can be climbed by help of this description ; a weight attached to one end of a rope, being first thrown over the wall, and the climber assisting himself by holding on to the other end. Trees of soft wood are climbed by cutting notches two feet apart on alternate sides. Also by driving in bamboo pegs, sloping alternately to left or to right; these pegs correspond to the " rungs " of a ladder.
Ladders.-A notched pole or a knotted rope makes a ladder. We hear of people who have tied sheets together to let themselves down high walls, when making an escape. The best way of making a long rope from sheets, is to cut them into strips of about six inches broad, and with these to twist a two-stranded rope, or else to plait a three-stranded one.
Descending cliffs with ropes is an art which naturalists and others have occasion to practise. It has been reduced to a system by the inhabitants of some rocky coasts in the Northern seas, where innumerable sea-birds go for the breeding season, and whose ledges and crevices are crammed with nests full of large eggs, about the end of May and the beginning of June. They are no despicable prize to a hungry native. I am indebted to a most devoted rock-climber, the late Mr. Woolley, for the following facts. It appears that the whole population are rock-climbers, in the following places:-St. Kilda, in the Hebrides ; Foula Island, in Shetland; the Faroe Islands generally; and in the Westmaroer Islands off Iceland. Flamborough Head used to be a famous place for this accomplishment, but the birds have become far less numerous ; they have been destroyed very wantonly with shot.
In descending a cliff, two ropes are used ; one a supple well-made, many-stranded, inch rope (see " Ropes "), to which the climber is attached, and by which he is let down ; the other is a much thinner cord, left to dangle over the cliff,
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