280 DANGEROUS PASS. 



detritus which had been detached, with bare 

 skeleton branches of overturned trees protruding 

 amongst the ruins, were visible over the devastated 

 fields of vetches and horse-beans that occupied the 

 bottom of the large valley into which we had 

 opened, where the stream we had previously kept 

 along, fell over the waterfall into this the bed of 

 the principal tributary of the Dinkee river. This 

 fallen earth, scattered far and wide, had con- 

 verted the green appearance of large tracts of 

 cultivated lands, with the crops far advanced, to 

 the condition and character of a freshly ploughed 

 fallow. 



I halted when I arrived at the dangerous pass, 

 to see if there were not another passage somewhere 

 else, and looked up and down, but saw no way 

 available but the one back again, which, as I had 

 come so far, I did not choose to take, so at once 

 put the question of its practicability to my mule by 

 urging her forward, willing to depend upon instinct 

 not leading the animal into a position, where she 

 was not perfectly satisfied that her preservation was 

 well assured. The termination of the road, where 

 its continuity had been swept away by the land- 

 slip, was opposite and in sight ; and with this 

 encouragement, and perhaps satisfied, that her rider 

 was a reasonable creature, and would not attempt 

 anything impracticable, the mule did not hesitate 

 the least, and on my intimation to proceed, began 

 carefully to place her feet, one after the other, on 



