A WEEK ON WALBEN'S RIDGE. 125 



seven intervening days &ye were showery. 

 The showers, mostly with thunder and 

 lightning, were of the sort that make an 

 umbrella ridiculous, and my jaunts, as a 

 rule, took me far from shelter. Yet I had 

 little to complain of. Now and then I was 

 put to my trumps, as it were ; my walk was 

 sometimes grievously abbreviated, and my 

 pace uncomfortably hurried, but by one 

 happy accident and another I always escaped 

 a drenching. Worse than the water that 

 fell — worse, and not to be escaped, even by 

 accident — was that which saturated the 

 atmosphere, making every day a dogday, and 

 the week a seven-day sweat. And then, as 

 if to even the account, on the last night of 

 my stay I was kept awake for hours shiver- 

 ing with cold ; and in the morning, after 

 putting on all the clothing I could wear, 

 and breakfasting in a snowstorm, I rode 

 down the mountain in a state susfsrestive of 

 approaching congelation. " My feet are 

 frozen, I know they are," said the lady who 

 sat beside me in the wagon ; but she was 

 mistaken. 



This sudden drop in the temperature 

 seemed to be a trial even to the natives. 



