ast distance from hence, I shall leave
that till I may hereafter, at more leisure, speak of my family, as I
promised you before; but as to how I came into this grotto, I knew not
at first, but soon perceived your humanity had brought me in, to take
care of me, after a terrible fall I had; not from the rock, as you
suppose, for then I must not now have been living to enjoy you, but
from a far less considerable height in the air. I'll tell you how it
happened. A parcel of us young people were upon a merry _swangean_*
round this _arkoe_,** which we usually divert ourselves with at set
times of the year, chasing and pursuing one another, sometimes soaring
to an extravagant height, and then shooting down again with surprising
precipitancy, till we even touch the trees; when of a sudden we mount
again and away."

* Flight.

** Water surrounded with a wood.

"I say, being of this party, and pursued by one of my comrades, I
descended down to the very trees, and she after me; but as I mounted,
she over-shooting me, brushed so stiffly against the upper part of
my _graundee_* that I lost my bearing; and being so near the branches
before I could recover it again, I sunk into the tree, and rendered
my graundee useless to me; so that down I came, and that with so much
force, that I but just felt my fall, and lost my senses. Whether I cried
out or no upon my coming to the ground, I cannot say; but if I did, my
companion was too far gone by that time to hear or take notice of me;
as she, probably, in so swift a flight, saw not my fall. As to the
condition I was in, or what happened immediately afterwards, I must
be obliged to you for a relation of that; but one thing I was quickly
sensible of, and never can forget, viz., that I owe my life to your care
and kindness to me."

* The covering and wings of skin they flew with.

I told her she should have that part of her story from me another time.
"But," says I, "there is something so amazing in these flights, or
swangeans, as you call them, that I must, as the questions for this day,
beg you would let me know what is the method of them. What is the nature
of your covering, which was at first such an obstacle to my wishes? How
you put it on? And how you use it in your swangean?"

"Surely, my dearest Peter," says she, "but that I can deny you nothing,
since you are my _barkatt_* which you seem so passionately to desire,
the latter of your questions would not be answere