As The Sides Of The
Mountains Drew Nearer, Our Path Led Along This Watercourse, And The Walking
Became Dreadfully Fatiguing.
The boulders were sometimes so close as to
render walking between impossible, and then it became necessary to clamber
over them, which, loaded as we were, was very painful.
If, on the other
hand, we attempted to journey on the 'top' of the boulders, they were not
only of unequal heights, but sometimes so wide apart, that a good spring
was requisite to get from one to the other. Lizzie was the only one of the
party who appeared thoroughly at home; her light figure bounded from rock
to rock with the greatest ease and rapidity. Even Cato and Ferdinand,
barefooted as they were, seemed to be a long way from enjoying themselves,
and for us wretched Europeans, with our thick boots, that obtained scarcely
any foothold, we slipped about from the rounded shoulders of the rocks, in
a way that was anything but pleasant.
Thus we scrambled along for another hour, at the expiration of which we
could only see a blank wall of mountain before us, up which it would have
been both impossible and useless to climb. Wondering where the deuce
Lizzie was leading us, we blundered along until we arrived at the base of
the perpendicular cliff, and saw that by some convulsion of nature the
ravine now branched off at a right angle to the left, and gradually widened
out into a beautiful and gently declining stretch of country, perfectly
shut in by hills, and into which a pretty little bay extended, with several
canoes on its placid surface.
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