50 SIR VICTOR BROOKE CHAP. 



I could not make up my mind which side I would attack 

 him at all ; the side I saw looked inaccessible, so 

 after a little indecision I made up my mind to go 

 round to the side farthest from the sea and take my 

 chance of finding some way there, by which I might 

 reach the top. Now to get there was the next 

 question ; this was no easy matter, all the mountains 

 round rising in black staring precipices as if to guard 

 their king from the ( aspiring foot of man.' The 

 only way I could rely upon was to try and scale a 

 black, ugly -looking ridge, at the far side of a 

 basin hemmed in by mountains and filled with huge 

 boulders of rock which at different times had come 

 down from the ' old man.' If I could manage this, I 

 saw it would be the easiest way to the part of the 

 mountain I wanted. Accordingly, when I came oppo- 

 site to the valley or basin, I made the men row me in ; 

 and after putting my wraps, etc., in a log hut that 

 was uninhabited, and telling the men to wait till I 

 returned, I set off with some biscuits in my pocket and 

 a flask of port wine, determined to do the best I could. 

 My road lay, as I before said, over huge rocks ; this, the 

 sun being unusually hot, I found very trying work ; it 

 was one continual set of jumps from one stone to 

 another, and as it lasted for about 3 miles, I was not 

 sorry to sit down amongst the last rocks and take out 

 my glasses and examine the work. Before it looked a 

 bad enough precipice from the sea, but it looked ten 

 times worse when I found myself just under it, straining 

 my eyes and neck in the effort to find some kind of a 

 way up. This I found it was impossible to do ; I could 

 not see what would do for a foothold and what would not 

 from where I was ; I must set to work and climb till I 

 found myself stopped ; and then, as I knew quite well, 

 the chances would be that I could not get down again. 



