14 
THE ORIENTAL ANNUAL. 
impervious to the eye beyond a few yards ; the broken 
ground and intercepting roots and branches, the un- 
certainty of our proper direction, and our dissentient 
conjectures, only tending to render the toil at every 
step less and less tolerable. As for the lake of which 
we came in search, with its abundant woodcocks and 
snipe, all thought of it had long since given place 
to an importunate anxiety to find the coast before 
night closed upon us, or before our bruised limbs 
should be altogether overpowered by fatigue. 
When at last by a persevering advance we broke 
from the confines of the forest, we found little indeed 
to cheer our flagging courage. A dreary plain, cut up 
with endless ravines, opened to a farther prospect of 
mountains, dark and forbidding as any thing we had 
yet beheld; shut in on every side, their sharp and 
ragged outlines scowled a defiance upon our now 
spiritless and drooping trio. Truly our condition was 
deplorable, and our outward appearance was by no 
means calculated to gloss over the reality of our suf- 
ferings, or to delude us in our estimation of them. 
Scarce a remnant of shoe-leather was there among us ; 
and as to our upper garments, the entire stock would 
not have furnished materials for a complete suit ; that 
which remained was hanging to our persons in tattered 
strips and shreds, deserving the names by which they 
are commonly designated about as much as did the 
patches which* we had left adhering to the thickets. 
Our prospects were not more flattering than our actual 
