470 
MERGE TO GYRENE. 
slipping along at others over a hard, polished surface, which was still 
more difficult to pass than they were. When we arrived at a descent 
more than usually perpendicular, we had the greatest difficulty, after 
sliding down ourselves, to make our poor horses follow us ; and it 
was truly distressing, as well as provoking, to see these fine 
animals reduced to a condition in which they did not appear to 
have the power of exerting the slightest portion of their natu- 
ral energy. Their eyes appeared starting from their heads, 
and their nostrils were distended to the utmost extent ; a mass of 
white foam was collected round their mouths, mixed with blood 
which the sharp Mamaluke bit had drawn forth in our endeavours 
to keep them from falling down the cliff, and the perspiration which 
terror and fatigue (without mentioning the heat of the sun) had 
drawn forth, literally ran down in streams from their bodies. They 
became at length so helpless and so completely overcome, that we 
doubted whether we should ever get them down the cliff at all, and 
indeed our own fatigue and continued anxiety would not have ren- 
dered us very effective conductors if the descent had lasted much 
longer. Yet our horses had been accustomed to roads of every de- 
scription, or rather to countries with no roads at all, and had 
often laboured through deep and heavy sands, and over rugged 
and mountainous passes, in the course of their journey from Tripoly. 
They had also an advantage in having only three shoes, which pre- 
vented them from slipping about so much as they would otherwise 
have done ; and in short they went through this arduous part of their 
