66 THE HOME OF THE TAKIN 



us off from the world. Always there sounded in 

 our ears the deadening, monotonous drip, drip, 

 drip of falling water. Drip ! drip ! drip ! it fell ; 

 drip ! drip ! drip ! At times we lost consciousness 

 of it, as one does of an oft-reiterated sound. Then 

 it would spring suddenly to life, and we became 

 conscious once more of its percolating murmur 

 presaging horrors for the coming night. Still it 

 was a grand opportunity for reading, and I shall 

 always feel grateful to Gil Bias and the immortal 

 and ever- cheery R. L. S. for their companionship 

 during those long wet days. 



At length one evening the mists began to thin, 

 our horizon, which had hitherto been bounded by 

 the top of a stunted larch a few yards from the 

 cave, extended, and we were able to see what our 

 resting place might have been. Before us lay a 

 deep gorge. Granite slopes and jagged cliffs whose 

 battlemented crests hung poised above great slides 

 of rock emerged. Below them lay thickets of 

 rhododendrons. It was possible again to maintain 

 a sense of distance. Ridges stood out, greyly at 

 first, but later with a stronger definition. The 

 nearer larches, no longer flat masses in the fore- 

 ground, put on delicate tints and shaded boughs. 

 Through strips of opalescent cloud the half- veiled 

 sun shone with a pearly lustre. The sky grew 

 full of the most wonderful shades of colour ; here, 

 glowing with the softened brilliance of a shell, 

 there, a pale, argent blue. Over all hung an at- 

 mosphere, unreal and impalpable, as though one 

 looked at a silver point delicately tinted and en- 

 dowed with life. Drifting mists swept across the 

 valleys, softening the deep, glowing emeralds and 



