104 THE XOnTITERN MOUXTAINS. 



matter as well as we ; waited patiently till a passage was 

 eut ; and then struggled gallantly through, often. among logs 

 where I expected to see their leg-bones snapt in two. But 

 my fears were needless ; the deft gallant animals got safe 

 through without a scratch. However, for them, as for us, the 

 work was very warm. The burnt forest was utterly without 

 shade ; and wood-cutting under a perpendicular noon-day sun 

 would have been trying enough had not our spirits been kept 

 up by the excitement, the sense of freedom and of power, 

 and also by the magnificent scenery which began to break upon 

 us. From one cliff, off which the whole forest had been burnt 

 away, we caught at last a sight westward of Tocuche, from 

 summit to base, rising out of a green sea of wood for the 

 fire, coming from the eastward, had stopped half-way down 

 the cliff ; and to the right of the picture the blue Xorthern Sea 

 shone through a gap in the hills. Wliat a view that was I To 

 conceive it, the reader must fancy himself at Clovelly, on 

 the north coast of Devon, if he ever has had the good for- 

 tune to see that most beautiful of English cliff- woodlands ; 

 he must magnify the whole scene four or fi^'e times ; and then 

 pour down on it a tropic sunshine and a ti^opic haze. 



Soon we felt, and thankful we were to feel it, a rush 

 of air, soft and yet bracing, cool yet not chilly ; the 

 " champagne atmosphere," as some one called it, of the 

 trade-wind : and all, even the very horses, plucked up heart ; 



