§90 .COURSE AND LEVELS 



1 



came to ascend it, I could scarcely persuade myself that what I had seen 

 was real. In describing the difficulties which a journey through these 

 countries presents, it is not easy to adhere to a just discrimination to give 

 an estimate as it were of the proportional dangers of each difficulty. Even 

 the least rugged of these strange and uncouth scenes, to give a correct idea 

 of it, almost exhausts language. Epithet is heaped on epithet till at. length 

 no stores are left to paint the succeeding scene, which rises still higher in 

 the scale of picturesque horror and danger. The continual recurrence, too, 

 of these descriptions, necessarily having a tiresome sameness, takes from 

 the effect. Where all is rugged, a savage feature strikes the less, and thus 

 the greatest difficulties as coming last are thought the least of. 1 have so 

 often attempted in vain to give an accurate idea of any of these places, that 

 I shall content myself with indicating the observed depression of the ford 

 from the summit, 35°; the difference of level about 1480 feet; the nature of 

 the path a hard and dry earth covered with small fragments of gravel, nar- 

 row and open to the left; neither tree, nor bush, nor herb, nor blade of grass, 

 from the summit to the very foot, not even a ledge of rock to check one's 

 fall, but a smooth undeviating declivity, down which we feared every mo- 

 ment to be precipitated, from the narrow ledge that served for a path, and 

 along which it appeared at first impossible to proceed without losing one's 

 footing. In a few words, this was by far the greatest difficulty we had yet 

 encountered, and I am not ashamed to confess that I felt very considerable 

 alarm in ascending it. From the pass, the descent is at first easy, latterly 

 more steep to Lio, a large village situated on an extensive flat at the. junc- 

 tion of the .Lipak stream with the river. A good deal of cultivation was 

 observed all round the village, and many apricot trees ; the whole distance 

 was about fifteen miles. I arrived just at dark, happy to fall in with my 

 tents and people, after even three day's separation. 



We had now before us a fairer prospect, and it was with pleasure we 

 heard horses recommended to us for the next stage. We did not accept 

 the offer, but many of our servants mounted themselves } some on ponies ? 



