n which I then lay, the first thing I saw was the boiling water of the
fall more than a hundred feet below me. My agony was such that large
drops of perspiration broke out all over my forehead. It was many
minutes before I could summon up courage to turn my head so as to look
upward, for I had a vague feeling that if I were to move the branch on
which I lay would break off. When I did so, I observed that the
branches over my head completely screened the sky from me, so that I
knew I had escaped one danger; for the natives, believing, no doubt,
that I had fallen down into the river, would at once give up their
hopeless pursuit. The branch on which I lay was so slender that it
swayed about with every motion that I made, and the longer I remained
there the more nervous did I become.

At last I bethought me that unless I made a manful effort I should
certainly perish, so I looked about me until I became accustomed to the
giddy position. Then I perceived that, by creeping along the branch
until I gained the trunk of the tree, I could descend by means of it to
the face of the precipice from which it projected, and thus gain a
narrow ledge of rock that overhung the abyss. In any other
circumstances I would as soon have ventured to cross the Falls of
Niagara on a tight-rope; but I had no other alternative, so I crept
along the branch slowly and nervously, clinging to it, at the same time,
with terrible tenacity. At last I gained the trunk of the tree and
breathed more freely, for it was much steadier than the branch.

The trunk projected, as I have said, almost horizontally from the
precipice, so I had to draw myself carefully along it, not daring to get
on my hands and knees, and finally reached the ledge above referred to.
Compared with my former position, this was a place of temporary safety,
for it was three feet wide, and having a good head, I had no fear of
falling over. But on looking up my heart sank within me, for the bare
cliff offered no foothold whatever. I do not believe that a monkey
could have climbed it. To descend the precipice was equally impossible,
for it was like a wall. My only hope, therefore, lay in the ledge on
which I stood, and which, I observed, ran along to the right and turned
round a projecting rock that hid the remainder of it from view.

Hasting along it, I found, to my inexpressible relief, that it
communicated with the top of the precipice. The ascent was difficult
and dangerous;