But we now approach a still more dangerous part of the coast—the eastern shores of Yorkshire. Flamborough Head first demands our attention.
The Head is the termination of the chalky Yorkshire Wolds, and it is surrounded by islands of chalk, showing plainly that the sea has cut them off from their former connection with the land. The cliffs around Flamborough Head are riddled and tunnelled by the sea waves, and there are many arches and caverns. The “Matron of Flamborough” is a fine pyramidal “needle,” standing boldly out of the water. Under the lighthouse are some remarkable broken cliffs, and then two great pillars of chalk called the “King and Queen” arrest attention. One of the largest and most rugged caverns is called “Robin Lyth’s Hole,” and it can be easily explored from the eastern side. The Head is, therefore, specially interesting to the artist, and, for other reasons, it is equally so to the naturalist. Crowds of sea birds startle the visitor, who is doubtless regarded as an intruder, as they flock out from all the crevices of the cliffs filled with their eggs, and cover both land and sea in their circling flight. The somewhat giddy feat of descending the face of the cliff with the aid of ropes, for the sake of the eggs, is one by which the Flamborough men gain their living in the summer. “A more familiar hazard is run by the bold fishers of this coast, who, in their little cobles, set forth from the north or the south landing to visit, perhaps, the Dogger Bank, possibly to return no more. ‘The sea gat him,’ is too often the [pg 252]reply to your inquiry for some honest fisherman who may have been your boatman round the promontory, or your guide through the windings of the caves.”[61] Many a fisherman’s widow or mother thinks sadly there of the husband or son who will no more return.
“Down on the sands, where the red light pales,
I sit and watch for the fisher’s sails;
And my heart throbs still with the old, old pain,
For the boat that will never come back again:
But a new world waits for my love and me,
A world of peace, where is no more sea.
“For God is good, and the gift He gave
Is held a while by the silver wave.