A WILD WAY DOWN. 105 



for tliat told us that we were at the summit of the pass, 

 and that the worst of our day's work was over. In five 

 minutes more we were aware, between the tree-stems, of 

 a green misty gulf beneath our very feet, which seemed at 

 the first glance boundless, but which gradually resolved 

 itself into mile after mile of forest, rushing down into 

 the sea. The hues of the distant woodlands, twentv miles 

 awav, seen throuo-h a veil of ultramarine, mincrled w^ith the 

 pale greens and blues of the water : and they again with the 

 pale sky, till the eye could hardly discern where land and 

 sea and air parted from each other. 



We stopped to gaze, and breathe ; and then downward again 

 for 'nigh two thousand feet toward Blanchisseuse. And so, 

 leading our tired horses, we went cheerily down the mountain 

 side in Indian file, hopping and slipping from ledge to mud 

 and mud to ledge, and calling a halt every five minutes to 

 look at some fresh curiosity : now a tree-fern, now a climbing 

 fern ; now some huge tree-trunk, whose name was only to be 

 guessed at ; now a fresh armadillo-burrow ; now a parasol- 

 ants' w^arren, which had to be avoided lest horse and ma-ii 

 should sink in it knee-deep, and come out sorely bitten ; now 

 some glimpse of sea and forest far below; now we cut a 

 water-vine, and had a long cool drink ; now a great moth 

 liad to be limited, if not caught ; or a toucan or some other 

 strange bird listened to ; or an eagle watched as he soared 



