The snow did not continue far down, but before long my father entered a
thick bank of cloud, and had to feel his way cautiously along the stream
that descended from the pass. It was some two hours before he emerged
into clear air, and found himself on the level bed of an old lake now
grassed over. He had quite forgotten this feature of the descent--perhaps
the clouds had hung over it; he was overjoyed, however, to find that the
flat ground abounded with a kind of quail, larger than ours, and hardly,
if at all, smaller than a partridge. The abundance of these quails
surprised him, for he did not remember them as plentiful anywhere on the
Erewhonian side of the mountains.

The Erewhonian quail, like its now nearly, if not quite, extinct New
Zealand congener, can take three successive flights of a few yards each,
but then becomes exhausted; hence quails are only found on ground that is
never burned, and where there are no wild animals to molest them; the
cats and dogs that accompany European civilisation soon exterminate them;
my father, therefore, felt safe in concluding that he was still far from
any village. Moreover he could see no sheep or goat's dung; and this
surprised him, for he thought he had found signs of pasturage much higher
than this. Doubtless, he said to himself, when he wrote his book he had
forgotten how long the descent had been. But it was odd, for the grass
was good feed enough, and ought, he considered, to have been well
stocked.

Tired with his climb, during which he had not rested to take food, but
had eaten biscuits, as he walked, he gave himself a good long rest, and
when refreshed, he ran down a couple of dozen quails, some of which he
meant to eat when he camped for the night, while the others would help
him out of a difficulty which had been troubling him for some time.

What was he to say when people asked him, as they were sure to do, how he
was living? And how was he to get enough Erewhonian money to keep him
going till he could find some safe means of selling a few of his nuggets?
He had had a little Erewhonian money when he went up in the balloon, but
had thrown it over, with everything else except the clothes he wore and
his MSS., when the balloon was nearing the water. He had nothing with
him that he dared offer for sale, and though he had plenty of gold, was
in reality penniless.

When, therefore, he saw the quails, he again felt as though some friendly
spirit was smoothing