We Make For The Face Of The Wall By A Route To The Left Of That I
Took On Monday, And When We Are Clambering Up It, Some 600 Feet
Above The Hillocks, Swish Comes A Terrific Rain-Storm At Us
Accompanied By A Squealing, Bitter Cold Wind.
We can hear the roar
of the rain on the forest below, and hoping to get above it we keep
on; hoping, however, is vain.
The dense mist that comes with it
prevents our seeing more than two yards in front, and we get too far
to the left. I am behind the band to-day, severely bringing up the
rear, and about 1 o'clock I hear shouts from the vanguard and when I
get up to them I find them sitting on the edge of one of the clefts
or scars in the mountain face.
I do not know how these quarry-like chasms have been formed. They
both look alike from below - the mountain wall comes down vertically
into them - and the bottom of this one slopes forward, so that if we
had had the misfortune when a little lower down to have gone a
little further to the left, we should have got on to the bottom of
it, and should have found ourselves walled in on three sides, and
had to retrace our steps; as it is we have just struck its right-
hand edge. And fortunately, the mist, thick as it is, has not been
sufficiently thick to lead the men to walk over it; for had they
done so they would have got killed, as the cliff arches in under so
that we look straight into the bottom of the scar some 200 or 300
feet below, when there is a split in the mist.
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