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| GIANT'S HEAD ROCK, PORTRUSH, ANTRIM. -The bold and rocky coast of Antrim is noted for the many fantastic shapes that present themselves to the eyes of the interested traveller. In the above sketch is shown the celebrated Giant's Head Rock, which displays a well defined profile of the human face, the nose, mouth and chin being very natural, much more so than the alleged facial outlines of other famous rocks in this and other countries. County Antrim is molded on a heroic model, and, in consequence, all its folk-lore tends toward the gigantic and marvelous. The White Rocks, out of which juts the Giant's Head, are fully 400 feet above the sea, and present companion wonders in the shape of the "Lion's Jaw" and other fanciful creations of the brain. In the dreadful Cromwellian period, many persecuted Catholic fugitives took shelter in the gloomy caverns formed by the wild sea waves in the base of the White Rocks. One cave called "The Priest's Hole," is still shown, in which, tradition says, a Catholic clergyman, on whose head a price was placed, took refuge for a long time. At last he was discovered by the soldiers, and, rather than fall into their hands, he leaped from the mouth of the cave into the seething billows and perished. |
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