My First Vulture’s Cliff 391 
3 
good climber. Other portions however to the eye are as smooth 
as a wall, and decidedly perilous to traverse. The whole surface 
of the cliff slopes at 60 to 7o degrees, and the strata at places 
afford a precarious foot-hold and hand-hold. <A distant view of 
this great cliff as well as one showing a portion of the face of it 
will be found in the chapter dealing with Cliff climbing. Owing 
to want of experience I attempted to scale this grand cliff the 
wrong way and although I was fortunate enough to succeed, 
I deserved to have broken my neck. I say this with intent, for 
some sixteen years later I went down this same cliff with the aid 
of a light Alpine Club rope and revisited the various spots I had 
escaladed on the occasion of my first expedition, and in the light 
of wider experience and of many adventures | can only repeat that 
it was sheer good fortune that I came out of that cliff unhurt on 
the occasion of my first visit. More particularly do I recall two 
absolutely culpable errors, the results of over-confidence and of 
lack of knowledge of the unwritten rules of climbing. Once 
I let myself drop on to a ledge whence it was impossible to return, 
for it is one thing to drop neatly with one’s feet on a few square 
inches and another to use the same restricted area to spring from 
so as to recover one’s hand-hold even a foot beyond one’s reach 
overhead; more especially if there is a matter of 300 ft. or so 
between the place where one is standing and the next step 
below. In this instance I was forced to continue my climb, and 
it was absolutely a game of chance where I should come to next 
and whether I should be able to find a way out. 
The second mistake was the result of even more unskilful 
conduct, for I swung myself round a projecting crag into a cavern 
which did not admit of egress by the same route. A sketch of 
this awkward spot is given in the frontispiece of this book. Here 
I nearly remained for all time, but fortune once again favoured 
me, and by means of emulating the action of the chimney sweep 
