We afterwards found that the slight elevations turned into
considerable hills, the groves into vast forests, and the small rivulets
into rapid rivers, which cost us much toil and danger to pass. We had
still some way to descend before we reached a level spot, when, near the
edge of the stream which rushed out of the gorge I have mentioned, we
halted to encamp.

Leaving the rest to make the usual arrangements, without stopping to
take food, I and three of the Raggets, with Leary's sons-in-law, and one
or two others, set off up the gorge to try and find the spot where the
wagon and the bodies of our late companions lay. I should say that as
we descended the mountain we had looked out for any practicable place by
which we might reach the bottom of the gorge, but none could we
discover. We had, of course, our rifles at our backs and our axes in
our belts, and either crowbars or poles in our hands. The ground was
rugged in the extreme. Sometimes we had to climb the sides of the
precipices, now to wade along the edge of the stream, running a great
risk of being carried off by the current. Sometimes we came to marshy
spots, into which we sank nearly up to our middle; then we worked our
way onward under trees, swinging ourselves from bough to bough, but the
greater part of the way we had to climb over huge boulders with crevices
between them, into which it would have been destruction to slip. We had
all climbed to the top of one huge rock, expecting that we should see
from it the spot at which we were aiming, when, on looking down the
opposite side, we found that there was at the bottom a watercourse with
a fall of nearly twenty feet into it, while nothing could we see of the
broken wagon. We had, therefore, to slip down the way we had come up,
and to progress as before. It was weary, fatiguing work. Still we
persevered; for there was, of course, a possibility that the poor young
Learys might be alive, though of this we had very little hope.

We had been deceived as to the distance, and we judged that we must
already have travelled a league, or three miles. Obed suggested that we
might have passed the spot, but this I did not think possible. Our
course, as I mentioned, lay along the side of the torrent; but
frequently we lost sight of it, though we did not cease to hear its loud
roar, as the foaming waters rushed over its rocky bed. I calculated, as
I looked at it, what a mighty torrent would be shortly hurrying