The 'Saddle' rises at a steep angle, say the steep roof of a house, and ends at another 'facer;' a huge rounded rock perhaps ten feet high standing straight up across the way, the way now having narrowed to a blunt-knife edge. This is the 'Saddle Rock,' and is the nastiest-looking and most dangerous place in the ascent. The 'Saddle Rock' must either be swarmed up or circumvented by stretching round its left side; for both experiments a rope is needed, and both are a trifle delicate. This time the rope went round; and the thread which disappeared past the smooth slippery face, out over the ghastly precipice, that fell down sheer into Pamplemousses, was not inviting. To get round you have to sidle up to the base of the rock, holding the tightly stretched rope level with your head, and push on your feet inch by inch till your toes rest on the outermost knob of rock. You must be quite sure that their hold is good before you slip your hands round the corner, letting your head and shoulders follow until you can make out a little branch as thick as your umbrella, and four inches long, which sticks out of a cranny, and is within reach of a long straddle. The awkward part of this is that in looking for the branch you are obliged to look _down_. It is the first look-down absolutely necessary, and it is one not easily forgotten. To the writer it had a strange fascination. The actual peril of the position; the necessity of coolness in head and eye; the uncertainty how far this could be relied upon, was so startling, so vivid when the actual time came, as to force a feeling of absolute security upon the mind! Never did he feel more certain of his own powers than when hanging like a spread-eagle against the face of that rock twenty-six hundred feet above the plains.
It is a good stretch, but does not require very long legs to do it. One toe, no more, the right one on a knob of rock; the other foot feeling for those four inches of scrub wood; both hands overhead grasping the rope; and the strangest bird's-eye view between one's legs that featherless biped could wish for. It did not do to look too long. Another pull up is in front, along a ridge like the previous two, but narrower again, which runs up to the Neck, the rope your companion all the way; and then you can at last sit down in perfect safety. This is the 'Neck,' which the aneroid gave as three hundred and forty feet above the 'Shoulder.' It forms an irregular plateau partly round the 'Head,' some six or eight feet broad, and quite flat. On it is a carpet of rough grass and 'everlastings,' protected from the wind and rain by the overhanging mass of rock, which is the 'Head,' formed of irregularly shaped rock, forty feet in height, nearly round, and which contains what there is of the brains of Pieter Both.