Swift flies the albatross, but fancy travels with still more rapid wings through the realms of space, and leads us suddenly from the lone islands of the Pacific to the north of another hemisphere. Saint Kilda rises before us--a glorious sight when the last rays of the setting sun, as he slowly sinks upon the ocean, light up with dazzling splendour the towering cliffs of the island, which one might almost fancy to be some huge volcano newly emerged from the deep, or the impregnable bulwark of some enchanted land. St. Kilda, one of the most striking examples of the grandest rock-scenery, plunges on all sides perpendicularly into the sea, so that although six miles in circumference, it affords but one single landing-place, accessible only in fair weather. Four of the promontories are perforated, and as many large caverns are formed, through which the sea rolls its heaving billows. From the eastern extremity, which rises nearly perpendicularly to the height of 1380 feet, and is supposed to be the loftiest precipice in Britain, the view is of indescribable sublimity. Far below, the long heavy swell of the ocean is seen climbing up the dark rock, whose base is clothed with sheets of snow-white foam. In many places the naked rock disappears under the myriads of sea-birds sitting upon their nests; the air is literally clouded with them, and the water seems profusely dotted with the larger fowl, the smaller ones being nearly invisible on account of the distance. Every narrow ledge is thickly covered with kittiwakes, auks, and guillemots; all the grassy spots are tenanted by the fulmar, and honey-combed by myriads of puffins; while close to the water's edge on the wet rocks, which are hollowed out into deep recesses, sit clusters of cormorants, erect and motionless, like so many unclean spirits, guarding the entrance of some gloomy cave.
On rolling down a large stone from the summit, a strange scene of confusion ensues. Here, falling like a thunderbolt on some unfortunate fulmar sitting upon its nest, it crushes the poor creature in an instant; then rolling down the crags, and cutting deep furrows in the grassy slopes, it scatters in dismay the dense groups of auks and guillemots. Its progress all along is marked by the clouds of birds, which affrighted shoot out from the precipice to avoid the fate to which nevertheless many fall a prey, until at length it reaches the bottom along with its many victims. The scared tenants of the rock now return to their resting-places, and all is again comparatively quiet.