50 On Climbing in General 
the ignominy of being lashed up and made to pay my footing in 
public and hied me aloft with a light heart. As I topped the 
futtock-shrouds I came on a couple of Bluejackets sitting in the 
maintop engaged in one of those inscrutable jobs in which a marling- 
spike figures largely and fully reckoning on the integrity of my 
chum the captain of the same top, I crawled up the topmast 
rigging and Jacob’s ladder and eventually struggled up from the jack 
to the truck. It was whilst descending that on reaching the jack 
I suddenly became aware that I was being watched by all hands 
below on the crowded forecastle where the soldiers, seasick and 
otherwise, were massed, presenting a sea of faces.  Glancing 
immediately below me (I had avoided doing so before by reason 
of the old tale of vertigo), I spied the Bluejackets just below 
the topmast crosstrees one on each side of the topmast shrouds 
obviously waiting to catch me! I felt that explanation might fail 
and would in any case be derogatory, so I looked round for a means 
of escape and, spying a topgallant backstay, swung myself on to 
it and descended to the deck much faster than I liked or intended, 
landing safely amid the cheers of the soldiers. 
But my glory was dearly purchased. In those days (and per- 
haps now) the sailorman had a hideous habit of ‘dressing ” all the 
standing rigging with an evil compound of grease and Stock- 
holm tar as a preservative. In my aerial descent I had gripped 
the backstay tightly with one leg hitched round it. Needless to 
explain that my immaculate and much be-laced and_ be-braided 
Rifleman’s patrol-jacket was smeared from chest to hip with the 
black grease as were my overalls. But I never advertised my mis- 
fortune and soothed myself with the congratulations I received 
especially from the faithless captain of the top. 
To return to the Rock. During my stay there I made various 
attempts to climb up from the sandy slope above Catalan Bay to 
the well-known nest of Bonelli’s Eagle, which has afforded an 
object of interest to so many visitors to the Signal Station. 
