of 



During this night journey I put myself both in 

 feeling and in fact in a blind man's place, the 

 best lesson I ever had to develop deliberation 

 and keenness of touch. 



The next hour after crossing the stream I spent 

 in climbing and descending a low wooded ridge 

 with smooth surface and gentle slopes. Then 

 there was one more river, the Little Cimar- 

 ron, to cross. An Engelmann spruce, with scaly, 

 flaky bark, that had stood perfectly perpendicu- 

 lar for a century or two but had recently been 

 hurled to the horizontal, provided a long, vibrat- 

 ing bridge for me to cross on. Once across, I 

 started to climb the most unstable mountain 

 that I had ever trodden. 



Mt. Coxcomb, up which I climbed, is not one 

 of the ''eternal hills" but a crumbling, dissolv- 

 ing, tumbling, transient mountain. Every hard 

 rain dissolves, erodes, and uncovers the sides of 

 this mountain as if it were composed of sugar, 

 paste, and stones. It is made up of a confused 

 mingling of parts and masses of soluble and 

 flinty materials. Here change and erosion run 

 riot after every rain. There is a great falling to 



228 



