ye
could reach. Could we have stepped from summit to summit of these steep
but narrow elevations we could easily have accomplished the distance; but
we must penetrate to the bottom of every yawning gulf, and scale in
succession every one of the eminences before us. Even Toby, although not
suffering as I did, was not proof against the disheartening influences of
the sight.

But we did not long stand to contemplate it, impatient as I was to reach
the waters of the torrent which flowed beneath us. With an insensibility
to danger which I cannot call to mind without shuddering, we threw
ourselves down the depths of the ravine, startling its savage solitudes
with the echoes produced by the falling fragments of rock we every moment
dislodged from their places, careless of the insecurity of our footing,
and reckless whether the slight roots and twigs we clutched at sustained
us for the while, or treacherously yielded to our grasp. For my own part,
I scarcely knew whether I was helplessly falling from the heights above,
or whether the fearful rapidity with which I descended was an act of my
own volition.

[Illustration: AT LAST WE GAINED THE TOP OF THE SECOND ELEVATION]

In a few minutes we reached the foot of the gorge, and kneeling upon a
small ledge of dripping rocks, I bent over to the stream. What a delicious
sensation was I now to experience! I paused for a second to concentrate
all my capabilities of enjoyment, and then immerged my lips in the clear
element before me. Had the apples of Sodom turned to ashes in my mouth, I
could not have felt a more startling revulsion. A single drop of the cold
fluid seemed to freeze every drop of blood in my body; the fever that had
been burning in my veins gave place on the instant to death-like chills,
which shook me one after another like so many shocks of electricity, while
the perspiration produced by my late violent exertions congealed in icy
beads upon my forehead. My thirst was gone, and I fairly loathed the
water. Starting to my feet, the sight of those dank rocks, oozing forth
moisture at every crevice, and the dark stream shooting along its dismal
channel, sent fresh chills through my shivering frame, and I felt as
uncontrollable a desire to climb up towards the genial sunlight as I
before had to descend the ravine.

After two hours' perilous exertions we stood upon the summit of another
ridge, and it was with difficulty I could bring myself to believe that we
had ever p