, he approached the mountains another way; and though
it is true, the hills and the precipices looked dreadfully, yet he made
so many tours, such meanders, and led us by such winding ways, we
insensibly passed the height of the mountains, without being much
encumbered with the snow; and all on a sudden he shewed us the pleasant
fruitful provinces of Languedoc and Gascoigne, all green and
flourishing; though indeed they were at a great distance, and we had
some rough way to pass yet.

We were a little uneasy, however, when we found it snowed one whole day
and a night, so fast, that we could not travel; but he bid us be easy,
we should soon be past it all: we found, indeed, that we began to
descend every day, and to come more north than before; and so, depending
upon our guide, we went on.

It was about two hours before night, when our guide being something
before us, and not just in sight, out rushed three monstrous wolves, and
after them a bear, out of a hollow way, adjoining to a thick wood. Two
of the wolves flew upon the guide, and had he been half a mile before
us, he had been devoured indeed, before we could have helped him; one of
them fastened upon his horse, and the other attacked the man with that
violence, that he had not time, or not presence of mind enough, to draw
his pistol, but hallooed and cried out to us most lustily. My man Friday
being next to me, I bid him ride up, and see what was the matter. As
soon as Friday came in sight of the man, he hallooed, as loud as the
other, "O master' O master!" But, like a bold fellow, rode directly up
to the man, and with his pistol shot the wolf that attacked him in
the head.

It was happy for the poor man that it was my man Friday; for he, having
been used to that kind of creature in his country, had no fear upon him,
but went close up to him, and shot him as above; whereas any of us would
have fired at a farther distance, and have perhaps either missed the
wolf, or endangered shooting the man.

But it was enough to have terrified a bolder man than I, and indeed it
alarmed all our company, when, with the noise of Friday's pistol, we
heard on both sides the dismallest howlings of wolves, and the noise
redoubled by the echo of the mountains, that it was to us as if there
had been a prodigious multitude of them; and perhaps indeed there was
not such a few, as that we had no cause of apprehensions.

However, as Friday had killed this wolf, the other, that had faste