to slacken a firm grasp of the hand; but to
the Land's End—not for the world!
However, instead of this path, which is optional,
we will thread the labyrinthine masses of the
pile, more venerable and more ancient than
the famous pyramids of Egypt.

We emerge. Before us is a hollow gully,
easily passable. Directly opposite, facing you,
is a sort of natural Cyclopean wall, all built
with huge fragments of granite—nothing but
granite all around—and on the top of the
wall, quite at the edge, lies, amongst others, a
rudely long-squared lump, with one of its
ends, not the sides, towards us. That is
THE LOGAN ROCK, or the Rocking Stone.

Man's very feebleness increases his own
self-admiration, when he finds what feats he
can nevertheless accomplish; which ought
thence to rise to admiration of the Power
who made him what he is. That such a
creature should be able to measure the
distance from hence to the sun, and weigh the
planets respectively; that a being, sent into
the world as naked and as helpless as a worm,
should buffet with seas and storms, and find
his way direct from England to the
Antipodes; that a block of stone, of enormous
weight, should yield to the cunningly-applied
pressure of an animal who looks almost like
a fly, ready to be crushed beneath its
movement!—A man is assuredly delighted with
himself to find that he can stir the Logan Rock.

We are silent in admiration. Not a sail is
in view, not a shred of civilisation is to be
perceived, and the primæval character of the
scene overpowers the thoughts. We are
gazing on a portion of Great Britain left just
in the state in which it was before the first
human inhabitant set foot upon the shore.

Our younger guide finds all this dull, and
begins to get impatient, like a greyhound
wanting to be let slip. He was not, however,
at all of the greyhound build; but a short,
stout, healthy lad, of one or two-and-twenty,
with a true good-humoured Cornish face,
which, by the way, is quite distinct from
our mixed Anglo-Normo-Romano-Saxon
physiognomy. My companion correctly
interpreted the restlessness, and supposed that
though a corpulent person like myself might
be in no hurry to scale the ramparts of the
Logan Rock, I might still wish to see it moved.

At a word, down rushed our young Cornishman
into the intervening hollow; up again
at the other side to the foot of one end of the
Cyclopean wall; up again, hop, skip, and
jump, leaping in mid air from ledge to ledge
with fearless agility. A slight pause at the
foot of the Logan; then, clapping his shoulder
to its lowest edge, and planting his feet firmly
on an opposite block, he began to heave, and
heave. A slight tremor in the mass was first
observable; then, as he began to grow red
in the face with the exertion, a very visible
rolling of the Logan to and fro was apparent,
which looked as if it would increase till it
overbalanced itself—possibly on his side.

"Enough!" we shouted; "that will do for
the present." Then, rising from his almost
horizontal position, he stepped back half a
pace, and with a spring, by the aid of hands
and feet, mounted the Logan itself, and stood
perched and upright on the very top, before
it had hardly ceased its quivering.

"Bravo!—Admirable!—Hurra! hurra!—
Very good, indeed, young tin-man!"

Our adventurer (as critics would say) looks
around him a moment or two, as careless as
a crow roosting on a tree-top, and then dashes
down the rugged steep as fast as the laws of
gravity aid him in so doing. He reaches the
bottom of the hollow safely, and in a minute
more stands panting at our side.

My companion had been painfully overcome
by terror at the performance; but was
reassured, by information from our Nestorian
friend, that the performer, during a considerable
part of the year, practised the profession
of a sailor, and was no stranger to the topmast,
and those other parts of a ship's rigging
wherein it is so pleasant to take the air.

Nestor is asked if he could do that. Nestor
shakes his head, to intimate that his dancing
days are over; but, if we wish it, the other
one will do it again, instead. Again, then,
let us see the mighty mass roll on its side.
The will was as good as ever, and the feat
was executed. But there are some things
which it is not possible for a man to perform
perfectly more than once or twice in the day.
It was like asking Carlotta Grisi, at the
conclusion of a brilliant and long-continued
coruscation of her many-twinkling feet, immediately
to repeat the same air, with variations. Our
young friend did his best; but the bound and
the spring of his former flight were wanting.
It revealed one thing, however, which much
diminished our fears for his safety: that
what we deemed a rash improvisation, was,
in fact, a practised, well-arranged succession
of movements; every step, and stride and leap
being the same, at the same spot as before.
Other people do contrive to get to the summit
of the Logan Rock; but most of them do it
very clumsily. Nothing but a course of
gymnastic lessons from a resident professor
would enable an amateur to acquit himself
creditably.

"'Tis an enormous thing for one man to
stir. Thirty-six, tons, you say, it weighs?
Why, Murray's Hand-Book calculates it at
eighty-six."

"Murray is right, sir, though I don't know
the gentleman; I said airty-six. And yet
that foolish Lieutenant managed to upset it."

And then Nestor gave us a yarn:—How
a gentleman in the British navy, having heard
the popular belief that the Logan Rock,
though moveable, was not displaceable, determined
to capsize it. How he came with his
crew, unobserved as he thought, and
departed with the proud consciousness of having
destroyed one of the most remarkable natural
curiosities in Great Britain. How the whole