`Pursuing my way, I passed among rugged cliffs and rocks which jutted
out from the shore, or rose in rugged masses from the water. Myriads of
sea-fowl inhabited the most inaccessible of these, while on the lower
ridges, seals, sea-bears and walruses, were to be seen, some basking
lazily in the sun, some plunging into the water, or emerging awkwardly
from it, hoisting their unwieldy bodies up the rocks by means of their
tusks.
`I must confess to feeling anything but comfortable while going
through the places held in possession by these monsters of the deep,
and used every effort to pass quickly and unnoticed. Yet it was more
than an hour and a half before I got clear of the rocks, cliffs, and
shoals to which they resorted, and neared a high and precipitous cape,
running far out to sea. Right opposite to me, in the side of this rocky
wall, was a magnificent archway, forming as it first appeared to me, a
lofty entrance to an immense vaulted cavern. I passed beneath this
noble portal and examined the interior.
`It was tenanted by numbers of a small species of swallow, scarcely
larger than a wren, and the walls were covered by thousands of their
nests. They were rudely built, and their peculiarity was that each
rested on a kind of platform, something like a spoon without the
handle.
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