From there the scoured red streaks stood out re- 

 vealed as road tracks for, made road there was none ; 

 from there, lines of whitish rock and loose stones and 

 big boulders, that one had taken for the beds 

 of mountain torrents, stood revealed as bits of 

 ' road,' linking up some of the broken sections of 

 the route ; but even from there not nearly all 

 the track was visible. The bumpy rumbling 

 and heavy clattering of waggons on the rocky 

 trail, the shouts of drivers and the crack of 

 whips, mixed with confusing echoes from some- 

 where above, set one puzzling and searching 

 higher still. Then in unexpected places here 

 and there other waggons would be seen against the 

 shadowy mountains, creeping up with infinite labour 

 foot by foot, tacking at all sorts of angles, winding 

 by undetected spur and slope and ridge towards the 

 summit the long spans of oxen and the bulky loads, 

 dwarfed into miniature by the vast background, look- 

 ing like snails upon a face of rock. 



To those who do not know, there is not much 

 difference between spans of oxen ; and the driving of 

 them seems merely a matter of brute strength in arm 

 and lung. One span looks like another ; and the 

 weird unearthly yells of the drivers, the cracks like 

 rifle-shots of the long lashes, and the hum and thud 

 of the more cruel doubled whip, seem to be all that is 

 needed. But it is not so : heart and training in the 

 cattle, skill and judgment in the driver, are needed there; 

 for the Berg is a searching test of man and beast. 

 Some, double-spanned and relieved of half their 



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