One Horse Broke
Down On The First Pass, And We Were Long Delayed By Sending The
Aino Back For Another.
Possibly these extraordinary passes do not
exceed 1500 feet in height, but the track ascends them through a
dense
Forest with most extraordinary abruptness, to descend as
abruptly, to rise again sometimes by a series of nearly washed-away
zigzags, at others by a straight, ladder-like ascent deeply
channelled, the bottom of the trough being filled with rough
stones, large and small, or with ledges of rock with an entangled
mass of branches and trailers overhead, which render it necessary
to stoop over the horse's head while he is either fumbling,
stumbling, or tumbling among the stones in a gash a foot wide, or
else is awkwardly leaping up broken rock steps nearly the height of
his chest, the whole performance consisting of a series of
scrambling jerks at the rate of a mile an hour.
In one of the worst places the Aino's horse, which was just in
front of mine, in trying to scramble up a nearly breast-high and
much-worn ledge, fell backwards, nearly overturning my horse, the
stretcher poles, which formed part of his pack, striking me so hard
above my ankle that for some minutes afterwards I thought the bone
was broken. The ankle was severely cut and bruised, and bled a
good deal, and I was knocked out of the saddle. Ito's horse fell
three times, and eventually the four were roped together.
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