ous creatures howl and yell in the woods as we went
several times, and sometimes we fancied we saw some of them; but the snow
dazzling our eyes, we were not certain. In about an hour more we came to
the town where we were to lodge, which we found in a terrible fright and
all in arms; for, it seems, the night before the wolves and some bears
had broken into the village, and put them in such terror that they were
obliged to keep guard night and day, but especially in the night, to
preserve their cattle, and indeed their people.

The next morning our guide was so ill, and his limbs swelled so much with
the rankling of his two wounds, that he could go no farther; so we were
obliged to take a new guide here, and go to Toulouse, where we found a
warm climate, a fruitful, pleasant country, and no snow, no wolves, nor
anything like them; but when we told our story at Toulouse, they told us
it was nothing but what was ordinary in the great forest at the foot of
the mountains, especially when the snow lay on the ground; but they
inquired much what kind of guide we had got who would venture to bring us
that way in such a severe season, and told us it was surprising we were
not all devoured. When we told them how we placed ourselves and the
horses in the middle, they blamed us exceedingly, and told us it was
fifty to one but we had been all destroyed, for it was the sight of the
horses which made the wolves so furious, seeing their prey, and that at
other times they are really afraid of a gun; but being excessively
hungry, and raging on that account, the eagerness to come at the horses
had made them senseless of danger, and that if we had not by the
continual fire, and at last by the stratagem of the train of powder,
mastered them, it had been great odds but that we had been torn to
pieces; whereas, had we been content to have sat still on horseback, and
fired as horsemen, they would not have taken the horses so much for their
own, when men were on their backs, as otherwise; and withal, they told us
that at last, if we had stood altogether, and left our horses, they would
have been so eager to have devoured them, that we might have come off
safe, especially having our firearms in our hands, being so many in
number. For my part, I was never so sensible of danger in my life; for,
seeing above three hundred devils come roaring and open-mouthed to devour
us, and having nothing to shelter us or retreat to, I gave myself over
for lost;