of 



test of leaning the farthest from the perpendic- 

 ular without falling. The potato-patch found- 

 ations of these in time give way, then gravity 

 drags them head foremost, or in broken install- 

 ments, down the slope. 



Among the forested slopes that I traversed 

 there were rock-slides, earthy glaciers, and leaf- 

 less gulches with crumbling walls. Some of these 

 gulches extended from bottom to top of the 

 mountain, while others were digging their way. 

 An occasional one had a temporary ending 

 against the bottom of a kingly cliff, whose short 

 reign was about to end as its igneous throne was 

 disorganized and decomposed. The storm and 

 darkness continued as I climbed the mountain 

 of short-lived scenes, a mountain so eagerly 

 moving from its place in the sky to a bed in the 

 sea. The saturation had softened and lubricated 

 the surface; these sedimentary slopes had been 

 made restless by the rain. 



I endeavored to follow up one of the ridges, 

 but it was narrow and all the pulpy places very 

 slippery. Fearing to tumble off into the dark 

 unknown, I climbed down into a gully and up 



230 



