A “CLOUD” OF BIRDS. 81

tressed with slanting piles of rocky fragments.
The ramparts, crenelated in some places, had
mouldered away in others; and one fancied he
saw, in the rents and scars of the giant pile, the
marks of the shot and shell which had wrought its
ruin. Thousands of white gulls, gone to their
mighty roost, rested on every ledge and cornice of
the rock; but preparations were already made to
disturb their slumbers. The steamer’s cannon was
directed towards the largest vault, and discharged.
Lhe fortress shook with the crashing reverbera-
tion; then rose a wild, piercing, myriad-tongued
cry, which still rings in my ears. With the cry
came a rushing sound, as of a tempest among the
woods ; a white cloud burst out of the hollow arch-
way, like the smoke of an answering shot, and, in
the space of a second, the air was filled with birds
thicker than autumn leaves, and rang with one
universal clanging shriek. The whirring, rusthng,
and screaming, as the birds circled overhead, or
dropped lke thick scurries of snowflakes on the
water, was truly awful. There could not have
been less than 50,000 in the air at one time, while
as many more clung to the face of the rock, or
screamed from the depth of the vaults. It was
now eleven o'clock, and Sveerholt glowed in fiery
bronze lustre as we rounded it—the eddies of re-
turning birds gleaming golden in the nocturnal