40 
ASCENT UP 
24 Jan. 
of the mountain, a little below which is the Water-mill, the most ele- 
vated habitation in Table Valley, and the last house on our road. At 
this time the day began to dawn, and the sober light of this early 
hour disclosed to our view, with peculiar solemnity, the stupendous 
precipice which we were to ascend. It presented a surface ap- 
parently flat and perpendicular, leaving me to wonder where it could 
be possible for us to find a way up to its summit ; but a cleft, 
or ravine, was pointed out, and that up this a path would be found ; 
though, it was confessed, that in some places the ascent was so ex- 
ceedingly steep as to be but barely practicable. 
At a little after four o'clock, we reached Platte Klip, (flat rock,) 
a large, broad, flat, inclined rock, of granite, lying across the bed of 
a ravine, and over which a stream of water was at this time silently 
gliding down, in a thin and almost imperceptible sheet, but which, in 
the rainy season, becomes a furious torrent. Our path lay over the 
upper part of tliis rock, and some caution is required in crossing it, 
as the water renders it very slippery. Notwithstanding this caution, 
one of the slaves missed his step, slipped, and was carried part of the 
Vv^ay down the rock, much to the amusement of his fellow-servants. 
By good fortune, however, he escaped unhurt ; yet he might have 
heen severely bruised by such an accident. 
The path soon became more steep and laborious, and the sun, 
from behind the distant mountains of Hottentot Holland, rose upon 
us before we had climbed much more than half the height. W e had 
been told that a sunrise, viewed from the top of this mountain, is 
particularly beautiful ; but I perceived in it nothing remarkable. I 
observed none of those streams of light which, in England, may often 
be seen radiating from the sun, just before it appears above the ho- 
rizon, and which are so trite a feature in pictures of sunrise. Its 
horizontal beams iflumined, with a reddish tinge, the huge mass of 
perpendicular rock which towered in majestic grandeur above our 
heads, and, together with the rude wildness of the scene, produced 
an effect truly sublime. Still, however, that part of the mountain 
above us never appeared so lofty as it really was, its vastness being 
