upon the cliff, and make it tremble; but sank lower and lower; and at last drew off from the precipice, leaving at its foot a long narrow strip of sand and shingle exposed to sight.  A solemn calm fell upon the waste of waters; only near the shore it continued to move a little, rising and falling like the chest of a sleeping giant, while along the margin small waves continued to form and break in white foam on the shingle with a perpetual low, moaning sound.  Further out it was quite calm, its surface everywhere flushed with changing violet, green, and rosy tints:  in a little while these lovely colours faded as from a sunset cloud, and it was all deep dark blue:  for the sun had gone, and the shadows of evening were over land and sea.  Then Martin, his little heart filled with a great awe and a great joy, crept away a few yards from the edge of the cliff and coiled himself up to sleep in a hollow in the soft warm sand.

On the following morning, after satisfying his hunger and thirst with some roots which he had not to go very far to find, he returned to watch the sea once more, and there he remained, never removing his eyes from the wonderful scene until the sun was directly over his head; then, when the sea was calm once more, he got up and started to walk along the cliff.

Keeping close to the edge, occasionally stopping to lie down on his chest and peer over, he went on and on for hours, until the afternoon tide once more covered the strip of shingled beach, and the waves rising high began to beat with a sound like thunder against the tremendous cliff, making the earth tremble under him.  At length he came to a spot where there was a great gap in the line of the cliff, where in past times a portion of it had tumbled down, and the stupendous masses of rock had rolled far out into the sea, and now formed islands of black jagged rock, standing high above the water.  Here among the rocks the sea boiled and roared its loudest, churning its waters into masses of white froth.  Here a fresh wonder met his sight:  a number of big animals unlike any creature he had ever seen before were lying prone on the rocks just out of the reach of the waves that beat round them.  At first they looked like cows, then he saw that they had neither horns nor legs, that their heads were like dog’s but without ears, and that they had two great flapper-shaped feet on their chests with which they walked or crawled upon the rocks whenever a wave broke on them, causing them to move a little higher.

[Illustration:  ]

They were sea-lions, a very big sort of seal, but Martin had never heard of such a creature, and being anxious to look more closely at them he went into the gap, and began cautiously climbing down over the broken masses of rock and clay until he got quite near the sea.  Lying there on a flat rock he became absorbed in watching these strange dog-headed legless cattle of the sea; for he now had them near, and they could see him, and occasionally one would lift its head and gaze earnestly at him out of large dark eyes that were soft and beautiful like the eyes of the doe that came to him on the hills.  O how glad he was to know that the sea, the mighty waters roaring so loud as if in wrath, had its big beasts too for him to love, like the hills and plains with their cattle and deer and horses!