We Soon Arrived At The
Verge Of A Deep Valley Amongst Mountains, Not Those Of The Chain
Which We Had Seen Before Us, And Which We Now Left To The Right,
But Those Of The Telleno Range, Just Before They Unite With That
Chain.
Round the sides of this valley, which exhibited something
of the appearance of a horse-shoe, wound the road
In a circuitous
manner; just before us, however, and diverging from the road, lay a
footpath which seemed, by a gradual descent, to lead across the
valley, and to rejoin the road on the other side, at the distance
of about a furlong; and into this we struck in order to avoid the
circuit.
We had not gone far before we met two Galicians, on their way to
cut the harvests of Castile. One of them shouted, "Cavalier, turn
back: in a moment you will be amongst precipices, where your
horses will break their necks, for we ourselves could scarcely
climb them on foot." The other cried, "Cavalier, proceed, but be
careful, and your horses, if sure-footed, will run no great danger:
my comrade is a fool." A violent dispute instantly ensued between
the two mountaineers, each supporting his opinion with loud oaths
and curses; but without stopping to see the result, I passed on,
but the path was now filled with stones and huge slaty rocks, on
which my horse was continually slipping. I likewise heard the
sound of water in a deep gorge, which I had hitherto not perceived,
and I soon saw that it would be worse than madness to proceed.
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