I CONCLUDE NOT TO DKINK. 
99 
strated itself and forced us back to following in each 
others* tracks. Stevens, myself, and three men, were 
now all that were left of the previous day’s party ; two 
of them, having been unable to move, were left on board, 
and the fresh hands who had joined us, with Baber at 
their head, kept up such a brisk pace that it was with 
difficulty we could keep company. In the course of a 
few hours, however, they quieted down considerably and 
gave us the lead again. 
Suddenly, we were brought to a halt in a most gloomy 
and unpromising locality; a rough, black, perpendicular 
wall of granite rose directly in front of us, whose 
height was probably fifty feet, whose broken front was 
hung with an ivy-like growth, whose right and left ex- 
tremes disappeared in a jungle more gloomy and closely 
packed than ever, and whose partially-visible base was 
washed by a sluggish and half-stagnant pool. K'o ray of 
sunlight reached us there ; the most that the vertical sun 
could do was to diffuse a subdued light like that of a 
stormy evening. Every thing else was bushes and water 
and rock. 
We had walked long without water, and, as we stopped 
on the edge of this pool, which was filled with old leaves 
and limbs of fallen trees, I stooped down to try its taste 
and temperature. I soon arose without drinking; fora 
small, three-inch snake, doubtless alarmed at the disturb- 
ance, swam away directly from under my mouth. I was 
only too thankful that ho had not swum into it. I now 
turned around to look for a leaf large enough to make 
a cup of, and, seeing one of the men passing some I 
thought would suit, asked him to pick me one. I then 
