of the mountain, a little below which is the Water-mill, the most elevated
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 apparently
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 exceedingly
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
eliding 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 this 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
way down the rock, much to the amusement of his fellow-servants.
By good fortune, however, he escaped unhurt; yet he might have
been 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, róse upon
us before we had climbed much more than half the height. We 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 horizon,
and which are so trite a feature in pictures of sunrise. Its
horizontal beams illumined, 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 sublimel Still, however, that part of the mountain
above us never appeared so lofty as it really was, its vastness being
intercepted from our view by the nearer and more projecting
masses.
The Devil1 s Mountain, which appeared quite close to us on our
left, is a part of Table Mountain, and is separated from it only at the
top, its elevation being not much inferior. It seemed to accompany
us in our ascent, and slowly to rise as we climbed the steep;
but, to our right, the Lion's Head, on the contrary, seemed to sink as
we mounted above the level of its summit. Looking behind us, we
watched the hills and distant mountains to the north and east,
slowly making their appearance one behind another, till the extensive
and grand range of the Hottentot Holland mountains, stood,
with its distant blue craggy summits, a barrier to the prospect, being
in some parts, loftier even than Table Mountain. These, with the
broad, intervening expanse of level country, were the grandest objects
which we noticed during the ascent.
On each side of our path was scattered a great variety of shrubs
and plants, some growing out of the bare rock. None were of a
much greater height than six or seven feet, and the greater part not
larger than one year’s growth, owing to a fire which happened the
year before on the mountain, and which unfortunately spread all the
way up this ravine. Crassula coccinea had, in many places, escaped
the devastation, and its fine scarlet flowers, peeping from between
the rocks and herbage, caught the eye much sooner than other beautiful
flowers of a less brilliant colour. Towards the top, the path becomes
very steep, ascending apparently at an angle of 35 or 40 degrees
of elevation ; . arid, in some places, even 45. Still following
the same ravine, we entered an enormous fissure which divides the
upper edge of the mountain : this opening is called the Poort, and,
on each.side, two lofty natural walls of rock, gradually approaching
each other, contract it, towards the top, to a width just sufficient for a
pathway. Two ol our party, with a couple of the slaves, reached the
summit by seven o’clock; but as I had been collecting ever since daylight,
and my arms began to ache with the accumulated load, I was
obliged to halt with the rest, at the entrance of the Poort, as well for
the purpose of taking breath ourselves, as of giving time to the other