The ascent of the mountain lay first up a steep, grassy, boulder-strewn slope, from the top of which we made a traverse across the face of the mountain to a ridge where the climbing was steep, but where there was good hand- and foot-hold. We zigzagged up this for several hundred feet. There was abundant vegetation, numbers of ferns, including a species of tree fern, tussock and other forms of grass, mosses, lichens and the “island tree” (_phylica nitida_), a gnarled and stunted tree which is found all over the island and which offers firm holding for climbers. There were also on the lower slopes a number of field daisies, or marguerites, and a species of wild geranium bearing a small flower with a pleasant aromatic smell. To another plant my guide gave the name of “dog-catcher,” because during the summer it grows a sort of “burr” which catches in the hair of the dogs and is very hard to remove. Our route followed a faint but definite track which is used constantly by the islanders in their search for wood to burn, and in the season for the eggs of mollymauks and other seabirds which nest there. Even the women make this ascent. We crossed several bold rocky bluffs and gullies. Nowhere was there any danger, provided reasonable care were used, but in one or two places one crept along dizzily poised ridges where a false or careless step would have been sufficient to precipitate one to a drop of two or three thousand feet. Near the top we were enveloped by dense mist accompanied by squalls of rain. Everything was obscured, and so we returned to the scrub, where we built a shelter from branches of the “island tree,” under which I sat and talked with Frank Glass. For one with such a limited outlook, this young man had very advanced ideas on life in general. He told me quite cheerfully that the island was faced with starvation and ruin. He also remarked that it would not do to go on marrying each other, and that they needed new blood. I recognized many of his expressions, however, as those of his father, Bob Glass. Our shelter after a while ceased to be effective, and the water started pouring through in little rivulets. There were no signs of the weather clearing, so we descended some distance and made a traverse to a high projecting rock known as “The Pinnacle.” This is a high, straight mass crowned with a little vegetation. It is inaccessible except by a tunnel running up the middle and emerging at the top, up which we scrambled with free use of elbows and knees. Here we were out of the mist, and had a fine bird’s-eye view of the flat part of the island and the settlement. The sea, edged with a long irregular line of white where the surf was breaking on the shore, stretched like a flat board to a dim, far-distant horizon.