CHAP. XXXII A TERRIBLE ROAD 377 



likely from all accounts to be soon impassable, I decided 

 to move down to the Attabar valley. The path was one 

 of the most villainous I have ever tried to take beasts 

 along, the greater part of the road lying in the bed of a 

 stream strewn with steep and slippery rocks, where 

 the mules kept falling and loads getting astray. At 

 one place the way led through a pool, between the 

 foot of one and the head of another waterfall, where, in 

 my endeavours to keep a donkey from being washed off 

 its legs and down the fall, I lost a cape. The scenery, 

 during this toilsome march — when I had time to turn 

 and glance at it — was one which for stern and rugged 

 grandeur I have never seen surpassed. We were 

 wending our way down a deep valley bounded on either 

 side by a seemingly endless range of dark basaltic rocks, 

 whose craggy, snow-crowned summits were half hidden 

 in the clouds. As we descended further, the cliffs 

 gradually became less steep and bare : grasses and shrubs, 

 finding some soil to root in, began to clothe the hill-side 

 with verdure, while the streams gathered volume from 

 tributary rills, till they became foaming torrents, which 

 rushed down the mountain side in a succession of 

 cataracts and rapids. 



We camped on the first level bit of ground we came 

 to, just before heavy rain began. I found, on examina- 

 tion, that the ibex-skins had hardly dried at all owing to 

 the continual cloud and mist we had lived in, so, to save 

 them, I took them into my tent, the atmosphere of which 

 by morning I leave to be imagined by any one who 

 knows the smell of fresh wild-goat skins. Next day 

 we descended through luxurious vegetation of almost 



