Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 2: Great Britain and Ireland, Part 2
General
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 2: Great Britain and Ireland, Part 2
Great Britain -- Description and travel; Ireland -- Description and travel
We left the road near Dunluce and walked along the smooth beach to the
cliffs that surround the Causeway. Here we obtained a guide, and
descended to one of the caves which can be entered from the shore.
Opposite the entrance a bare rock called Sea Gull Isle rises out of the
sea like a church-steeple. The roof at first was low, but we shortly
came to a branch that opened on the sea, where the arch was forty-six
feet in height. The breakers dashed far into the cave, and flocks of
sea-birds circled round its mouth. The sound of a gun was like a
deafening peal of thunder, crashing from arch to arch till it rolled out
of the cavern.
On the top of the hill a splendid hotel is erected for visitors to the
Causeway; after passing this we descended to the base of the cliffs,
which are here upward of four hundred feet high, and soon began to find
in the columnar formation of the rocks indications of our approach. The
guide pointed out some columns which appeared to have been melted and
run together, from which Sir Humphrey Davy attributed the formation of
the Causeway to the action of fire. Near this is the Giant's Well, a
spring of the purest water, the bottom formed by three perfect hexagons
and the sides of regular columns. One of us observing that no giant had
ever drunk from it, the old man answered. "Perhaps not, but it was made
by a giant--God Almighty!"
From the well the Causeway commences--a mass of columns from triangular
to octagonal, lying in compact forms and extending into the sea. I was
somewhat disappointed at first, having supposed the Causeway to be of
great height, but I found the Giant's Loom, which is the highest part of
it, to be but about fifty feet from the water. The singular appearance
of the columns and the many strange forms which they assume render it,
nevertheless, an object of the greatest interest. Walking out on the
rocks, we came to the Ladies' Chair, the seat, back sides and foot-stool
being all regularly formed by the broken columns. The guide said that
any lady who would take three drinks from the Giant's Well, then sit in
this chair and think of any gentleman for whom she had a preference,
would be married before a twelvemonth. I asked him if it would answer as
well for gentlemen, for by a wonderful coincidence we had each drank
three times at the well. He said it would, and thought he was confirming
his statement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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