ke a ladder to enter.

The only road across the rocks leads to a habitation sterile enough, you
may suppose, when I tell you that the little earth on the adjacent ones
was carried there by the late inhabitant. A path, almost impracticable
for a horse, goes on to Arendall, still further to the westward.

I inquired for a walk, and, mounting near two hundred steps made round a
rock, walked up and down for about a hundred yards viewing the sea, to
which I quickly descended by steps that cheated the declivity. The ocean
and these tremendous bulwarks enclosed me on every side. I felt the
confinement, and wished for wings to reach still loftier cliffs, whose
slippery sides no foot was so hardy as to tread. Yet what was it to
see?--only a boundless waste of water--not a glimpse of smiling
nature--not a patch of lively green to relieve the aching sight, or vary
the objects of meditation.

I felt my breath oppressed, though nothing could be clearer than the
atmosphere. Wandering there alone, I found the solitude desirable; my
mind was stored with ideas, which this new scene associated with
astonishing rapidity. But I shuddered at the thought of receiving
existence, and remaining here, in the solitude of ignorance, till forced
to leave a world of which I had seen so little, for the character of the
inhabitants is as uncultivated, if not as picturesquely wild, as their
abode.

Having no employment but traffic, of which a contraband trade makes the
basis of their profit, the coarsest feelings of honesty are quickly
blunted. You may suppose that I speak in general terms; and that, with
all the disadvantages of nature and circumstances, there are still some
respectable exceptions, the more praiseworthy, as tricking is a very
contagious mental disease, that dries up all the generous juices of the
heart. Nothing genial, in fact, appears around this place, or within the
circle of its rocks. And, now I recollect, it seems to me that the most
genial and humane characters I have met with in life were most alive to
the sentiments inspired by tranquil country scenes. What, indeed, is to
humanise these beings, who rest shut up (for they seldom even open their
windows), smoking, drinking brandy, and driving bargains? I have been
almost stifled by these smokers. They begin in the morning, and are
rarely without their pipe till they go to bed. Nothing can be more
disgusting than the rooms and men towards the evening--breath, teet