From a broken stair-like base, washed, as the steps of a water-palace,by the waves, the tower rose in entablatures of strata to a shavensummit. These uniform layers, which compose the mass, form its mostpeculiar feature. For at their lines of junction they project flatlyinto encircling shelves, from top to bottom, rising one above another ingraduated series. And as the eaves of any old barn or abbey are alivewith swallows, so were all these rocky ledges with unnumbered sea-fowl.Eaves upon eaves, and nests upon nests. Here and there were longbirdlime streaks of a ghostly white staining the tower from sea to air,readily accounting for its sail-like look afar. All would have beenbewitchingly quiescent, were it not for the demoniac din created by thebirds. Not only were the eaves rustling with them, but they flew denselyoverhead, spreading themselves into a winged and continually shiftingcanopy. The tower is the resort of aquatic birds for hundreds of leaguesaround. To the north, to the east, to the west, stretches nothing buteternal ocean; so that the man-of-war hawk coming from the coasts ofNorth America, Polynesia, or Peru, makes his first land at Rodondo. Andyet though Rodondo be terra-firma, no land-bird ever lighted on it.Fancy a red-robin or a canary there! What a falling into the hands ofthe Philistines, when the poor warbler should be surrounded by suchlocust-flights of strong bandit birds, with long bills cruel as daggers.
