After A Short Halt, An Advance
Was Proposed; And This Was An Offer Which, On Principle, I Never Refused.
We Remounted Our Mules, Now Refreshed And In Good Spirits, And Began To
Ascend The Stony Face Of The Eastern Hill Through A Thick Mist, Deepening
The Darkness.
As we reached the bleak summit, a heavy shower gave my
companions a pretext to stop:
They readily found a deserted thorn fence,
in which we passed a wet night. That day we had travelled at least thirty-
five miles without seeing the face of man: the country was parched to a
cinder for want of water, and all the Nomads had migrated to the plains.
The morning of the 29th January was unusually fine: the last night's rain
hung in masses of mist about the hill-sides, and the rapid evaporation
clothed the clear background with deep blue. We began the day by ascending
a steep goat-track: it led to a sandy Fiumara, overgrown with Jujubes and
other thorns, abounding in water, and showing in the rocky sides, caverns
fit for a race of Troglodytes. Pursuing the path over a stony valley lying
between parallel ranges of hill, we halted at about 10 A.M. in a large
patch of grass-land, the produce of the rain, which for some days past had
been fertilising the hill-tops. Whilst our beasts grazed greedily, we sat
under a bush, and saw far beneath us the low country which separates the
Ghauts from the sea.
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