its midst, and a peak rising beyond, covered with snow, which glittered
in the sunlight like a monstrous heap of white salt.

After resting at this point half an hour to breathe our mules, the
guides got into their saddles, and we did likewise, and so on again
along the side of the ravine, only not of a cluster as heretofore, but
one behind the other in a long line, the mules falling into this order
of themselves as if they had travelled the path an hundred times; but
there was no means of going otherwise, the path being atrociously narrow
and steep, and only fit for wild goats, there being no landrail, coping,
or anything in the world to stay one from being hurled down a thousand
feet, and the mountain sides so inclined that 'twas a miracle the mules
could find foothold and keep their balance. From the bottom of the
ravine came a constant roar of falling water, though we could spy it
only now and then leaping down from one chasm to another; and more than
once our guides would cry to us to stop (and that where our mules had to
keep shifting their feet to get a hold) while some huge boulder,
loosened by the night's rain, flew down across our path in terrific
bounds from the heights above, making the very mountain tremble with the
shock. Not a word spoke we; nay, we had scarce courage at times to draw
breath, for two hours and more of this fearful passage, with no
encouragement from our guides save that one of them did coolly take out
a knife and peel an onion as though he had been on a level, broad road;
and then, reaching a flat space, we came to a stand again before an
ascent that promised to be worse than that we had done. Here we got
down, Moll clinging to our hands and looking around her with large,
frighted eyes.

"Shall we soon be there?" she asked.

And the Don, putting this question in Spanish to the guides, they
pointed upwards to a gap filled with snow, and answered that was the
highest point. This was some consolation, though we could not regard the
rugged way that lay betwixt us and that without quaking. Indeed, I
thought that even Don Sanchez, despite the calm, unmoved countenance he
ever kept, did look about him with a certain kind of uneasiness.
However, taking example from our guides, we unloosed our saddle bags,
and laid out our store of victuals with a hogskin of wine which
rekindled our spirits prodigiously.

While we were at this repast, our guides, starting as if they had caught
a sound (though