We Tumbled Into Holes Often, And As Easily
Tumbled Out Of Them; But Once We Both Went Down In The
Most
unexpected manner into what must have been an old bear-trap, both
going over our horses' heads, the horses
And ourselves struggling
together in a narrow space in a mist of grassy plumes, and, being
unable to communicate with my guide, the sense of the ridiculous
situation was so overpowering that, even in the midst of the
mishap, I was exhausted with laughter, though not a little bruised.
It was very hard to get out of that pitfall, and I hope I shall
never get into one again. It is not the first occasion on which I
have been glad that the Yezo horses are shoeless. It was through
this long grass that we fought our way to the tufa cones, with the
red ragged crests against the blue sky.
The scenery was magnificent, and after getting so far I longed to
explore the sources of the rivers, but besides the many
difficulties the day was far spent. I was also too weak for any
energetic undertaking, yet I felt an intuitive perception of the
passion and fascination of exploring, and understood how people
could give up their lives to it. I turned away from the tufa cones
and the glory of the ragged crests very sadly, to ride a tired
horse through great difficulties; and the animal was so thoroughly
done up that I had to walk, or rather wade, for the last hour, and
it was nightfall when I returned, to find that Ito had packed up
all my things, had been waiting ever since noon to start for
Horobets, was very grumpy at having to unpack, and thoroughly
disgusted when I told him that I was so tired and bruised that I
should have to remain the next day to rest.
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