To the Masthead, H.M.S. “Simoom” 49 
alone. There is little enough to be done at Gibraltar during the 
summer months, and when nests failed I used to devote my energies 
to scrambling about the cliffs, with an eye to marking down some 
possible nesting-place for the succeeding year. Of course such 
constant practice was invaluable. Several of these climbs had 
their risks. I can recall one up by the back of the Rock to Middle 
Hill Battery as it was then styled. My motive that time was not 
entirely birdsnesting. I had read how during the siege of 1706 
a traitorous goatherd had conducted a party of 500 intrepid 
Spaniards under a certain Colonel Figueroa up this cliff, and 
how they were attacked by the British soldiers at Middle Hill and 
shot down, the survivors (?) being thrown over the cliff, a fall of 
1,000 ft. or so. (There were no “ hand-uppers” apparently in those 
days.) I became possessed with a desire to see for myself what 
sort of a path the gallant attackers had taken, but from what 
I then saw I am convinced that, subsequent to the ‘“ regrettable 
incident,” the cliff must have been scarped and rendered more 
difficult. 
Like all beginners at climbing, I had always before me the bogey 
of vertigo, or some such malady which I had been told induced 
climbers, when they attained to any great height to cast them- 
selves down from it forthwith. Hence at first I was always a 
little nervous at looking down when in very steep and precipitous 
places. Of course it was very silly and I adopted a drastic 
and most effectual remedy which removed such follies from one’s 
brain once and for all. 
This was going aloft at sea—-there were masts and sails in 
those days—and between various voyages in our old troopships and 
an occasional trip in a warship I soon acquired the necessary degree 
of confidence. I remember that I first went to the main-truck 
of a ship in the venerable old Szmoom. I had taken the usual 
orthodox precaution to “square” the captain of the top to avoid 
4 
