the dizzy peak, like the turret of a ruined castle, overlooking the surf at a height of nearly two thousand feet. We now lay down again, breathing hard, and a good deal exhausted. When partly recovered, I looked over the edge toward Crusoe's Valley. It was the grandest sight I ever beheld; rugged cliffs and winding ridges hundreds of feet below; a green valley embowered in shrubbery nestling beneath the heights, all calm and smiling in the warm sunshine; slopes of woodland stretching up in the ravines; a line of white spray from the surf all along the shores, and the boundless ocean outspread in one vast sweep beyond.
"I'll tell you what it is, Luff," said Abraham, "this may be all very fine, but I don't want to try it again."
"Nor I either, Abraham. Isn't it awful climbing?"
"Yes, awful enough; but we must get on the top of that old castle there."
"To be sure," said I, rather doubtfully. "Of course, Abraham; we ought to climb that as a sort of climax. It will make an excellent climax either to ourselves or the adventure."
Saying this, I walked a few steps from the place where we were lying down, to see if there was any way of scaling the Nipple. It appeared to be a huge pile of loose rocks ready to fall to pieces upon being touched. It was about a hundred feet high, and nearly perpendicular all round. There was no part that seemed to me at all accessible. Even the first part or foundation could not be reached without passing over a sharp ridge, steep at both sides, and entirely destitute of vegetation. I was not quite mad enough to undertake such a thing as this without the least hope of success.
"No, Abraham," said I, "we can't do it. I see no way of getting up there."
"Let me take a look," said Abraham, who was always fertile in discoveries. "I think I see a place that we can climb over, so as to get on that horseback sort of a ridge, and the rest of the way may be easier than we suppose."
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