ate again, where the
country was pleasant, and no snow to be seen; but on a sudden, turning
to his left, he approached the mountains another way: and though it is
true the hills and precipices looked dreadful, yet he made so many
tours, such meanders, and led us by such winding ways, that we
insensibly passed the height of the mountains without being much
encumbered with the snow; and, all on a sudden, he showed us the
pleasant fruitful provinces of Languedoc and Gascony, all green and
flourishing, though, indeed, at a great distance, and we had some rough
way to pass still.

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 made at the guide, and had he been far before us, he would
have been devoured 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 presence of mind enough, to draw his pistol, but
hallooed and cried out to us most lustily. My man Friday being next me,
I bade him ride up, and see what was the matter. As soon as Friday came
in sight of the man, he hallooed out as loud as the other, "O master! O
master!" but, like a bold fellow, rode directly up to the poor 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 such creatures in his country, he had no fear upon him, but
went close up to him and shot him, as above; whereas any other 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 most dismal howling of wolves; and the noise,
redoubled by the echo of the mountains, appeared to us as if there had
been a prodigious number of them; and perhaps there was not such a few
as that we had no cause of apprehensio