Thus prepared, we followed our guides up the mountainous rock, but we had no small difficulty in making anything like progress; for a stream which flowed from the top rendered the ascent so slippery, that for every two feet in advance we went one backwards. The example, however, of the natives—who, by the help of their pikes, were climbing slowly but surely upwards, and resembled a school of aged monkeys with walking sticks—urged us on, and at length we reached the summit safe and sound, if I except the state of our wind, which was so short that we were obliged to throw ourselves upon the rock, and rest before proceeding further.
The difficulties and dangers of that ascent, however, dwindled into insignificance when, stretching ourselves at full length upon the ground, and hanging our heads over the precipice, we caught a glimpse of the task before, or rather, beneath us.
Let the reader imagine a nearly perpendicular rock, from the summit to the boiling sea which lashed its base, some five or six hundred feet, and he will not be surprised that, moving backwards and again getting to my feet, I exclaimed:
“Born monkeys could never make that descent without breaking their necks, Martin. The sight is enough for me.”
“Oh, nonsense!” he replied; “a hundred feet more or less makes no difference, so that the rope is strong.”
“But, Prabu,” he said, “where are the caves?” I could not see an opening of any kind.
“Let my masters watch the descent of the villagers, and they will see them,” was the reply.
The auxiliaries from the village were the first to go over the side. Each man drove his spike into the ground, very carefully and deeply; then, having secured one end of his rope to the handle, threw the other over the rock, and commenced the descent. Martin and I, at full length, and with our heads over the precipice, watched in astonishment the cat or rather monkey-like ease and facility with which each let himself down the rope; till, when within about a hundred feet from the sea, and looking to us scarcely so large as the animal to whom I have compared him, he bent his knees, and placing the soles of his feet against the rock, used it as a kind of springing-board, from which he leaped a sufficient distance to obtain a momentum that sent him, on his return, into a fissure or hole in its side, which, by the way, we did not know was there until we suddenly lost sight of the gatherer.
“After all, Claud,” commented Martin, “you see, it is not so difficult.”
“For birds, monkeys, or these fellows, who are trained to it from childhood, perhaps not,” said I; but before my brother could reply, Prabu, pulling us back by the legs, said: