scribe their meaning to him. But after he had
patiently watched and listened, he said: "I think, Mulla-mulgars, they
mean that if we keep walking along these slippery high banks, one by
one, we shall topple head over heels into the torrent, and be
drowned--over like that," he said, and traced with his finger an arch in
the air.

But this was by no means what the Fishing-mulgars meant. For, about
three leagues beyond the last of their houses, the travellers began to
hear a distant and steady roar, like a faint, continuous thunder, which
grew as they advanced ever louder and louder. And when the first faint
flowers began to peep blue and yellow along the margin where the sun had
melted the snow, they came to where the waters of the torrent widened
and forked, some, with a great boiling of foam and prodigious clamour,
whelming sheer down a precipice of rock, while the rest swept green and
full and smooth into a rounded cavern in the mountain-side.

Here, as it was now drawing towards darkness, the travellers built their
fire and made their camp. Next morning Ghibba decided, after long
palaver, to take with him two or three of the Mountain-mulgars to see if
they could clamber down beside the cataract, to discover what kind of
country lay beneath. Standing above, and peering down, they could see
nothing, because, with the melting of the snow, a thick mist had risen
out of the valley, and swam white as milk beneath them, into which great
dish of milk the cataract poured its foam. Ghibba took at last with him
five of the nimblest and youngest of the Moona-mulgars, not knowing what
difficulties or dangers might not beset them. But he promised to return
to the Mulla-mulgars before nightfall.

"But if," he said, "the first star comes, but no Ghibba, then do you, O
Royalties, if it please you, build up a big fire above the waters, so
that we may grope our way back to you before morning."

So, with bundles of nuts and a little of the mountain cheese that was
left, when the morning was high, Ghibba and his five set off. The rest
of the travellers sat basking in the sunshine all that day, dressing
their sores and bruises, dusting themselves, and sleeking out their
matted hair. Some even, so great was the neglect they had fallen into,
took water to themselves to ease their labour. But for the most part
Mulgars use water for their insides only (and that not often, so juicy
are their fruits), never for their out. But dusk began to fa