52 NAPAHnrA. 



roots, some ten feet liioh. We stood and looked at it, and 

 the longer we looked in hunting phrase the less we liked 

 it. But there was no alternative. Some one jumped oft", 

 and scrambled up on his hands and knees ; his horse was 

 driven up the bank to him on its knees, likewise, more 

 than once and cauoht staG^fi^eringj amon^r boughs and 

 mud ; and by the time the whole cavalcade was over, 

 horses and men looked as if thev had been brick-makini: 

 for a week. 



But here again the cunning of these horses surprised me. 

 On one very steep pitch, for instance, I saw before me two 

 logs across the path, two feet and more in diameter, and what 

 was worse, not two feet apart. How the brown cob meant to 

 get over I could not guess : but as he seemed not to falter or 

 turn tail, as an English horse would have done, I laid the 

 reins on his neck and watched his legs. To my astonishment, 

 he lifted a fore-leg out of the abyss of mud, put it between 

 the logs, where I expected to hear it snap ; clawed in 

 front, and shuftled behind ; put the other over the second 

 log, the mud and water splashing into my face, and then 

 brought the first freely out from between the logs, and 

 horrible to see put a hind one in. Thus did he fairly walk 

 through the whole ; stopped a moment to get his breath ; 

 and then staggered and scrambled upward again, as if he had 

 done nothing remarkable. Coming back, by the bye, those 



