h the inhabitants of the hut may have subsisted. Hunters they must
have been. That will be your natural conjecture.

But how did they get into this valley, and how got they out of it? Of
course, like yourself, they descended into it, and then ascended out
again, by means of a rope-ladder.

That would be the explanation at which you would arrive; and it would be
a satisfactory one, but for a circumstance that just now comes under
your observation.

Scanning the _facade_ of the cliff, your eye is arrested by a singular
appearance. You perceive a serried line, or rather a series of serried
lines, running from the base in a vertical direction. On drawing nearer
to these curious objects, you discover them to be ladders--the lowest
set upon the earth, and reaching to a ledge, upon which the second is
rested; this one extending to a second ledge, on which the third ladder
finds support; and so on throughout a whole series of six.

At first sight, it would appear to you as if the _ci-devant_ denizens of
the hut had made their exodus from the valley by means of these ladders;
and such would be the natural conviction, but for a circumstance that
forbids belief in this mode of exit: _the ladders do not continue to the
top of the cliff_! A long space, which would require two or three more
such ladders to span it, still intervenes between the top of the highest
and the brow of the precipice; and this could not have been scaled
without additional ladders. Where are they? It is scarcely probable
they had been drawn up; and had they fallen back into the valley, they
would still be there. There are none upon the ground.

But these conjectures do not require to be continued. A short
examination of the cliff suffices to convince you that the design of
scaling it by ladders could not have succeeded. The ledge against which
rests the top of the highest must have been found too narrow to support
another; or rather, the rocks above and projecting over would render it
impossible to place a ladder upon this ledge. It is evident that the
scheme had been tried and abandoned.

The very character of the attempt proves that they who had made it must
have been placed in a desperate situation--imprisoned within that
cliff-girt valley, with no means of escaping from it, except such as
they themselves might devise.

Moreover, after a complete exploration of the place, you can find no
evidence that they ever did escape from their stran