"
To our great advantage we were the only visitors at the rocks, and for
that reason enjoyed the uninterrupted services of the official guide, an
elderly man whose heart was in his work, and a born poet withal.
[Illustration: THE DANCING-BEAR ROCK.]
The first thing we had to do was to purchase his book of poems, which,
as a matter of course, was full of poetical descriptions of the
wonderful rocks he had to show us--and thoroughly and conscientiously
he did his duty. As we came to each rock, whether we had to stand below
or above it, he poured out his poetry with a rapidity that quite
bewildered and astonished us. He could not, of course, tell us whether
the rocks had been worn into their strange forms by the action of the
sea washing against them at some remote period, or whether they had been
shaped in the course of ages by the action of the wind and rain; but we
have appealed to our geological friend, who states, in that emphatic way
which scientific people adopt, that these irregular crags are made of
millstone grit, and that the fantastic shapes are due to long exposure
to weather and the unequal hardness of the rock. Our guide accompanied
us first to the top of a great rock, which he called Mount Pisgah, from
which we could see on one side a wilderness of bare moors and mountains,
and on the other a fertile valley, interspersed with towns and villages
as far as the eye could reach.
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