66 MYOLA CHAP. 
There was a painful melancholy in the bush here, an 
unspeakable solitude among these masses of weather- 
beaten peaks, and an utter absence of external signs 
of life — " So lonely 'tis that God himself scarce seemeth 
there to be." High up in the crevice of a rock above 
us I saw a tempting bunch of laf^e pink flowers ; it 
required all my stoical resolution to attempt the feat 
of reaching it, but at the peril of slipping, I did my 
best The higher I went, the more the cliffs seemed 
to rear themselves. After going through all the antique 
labours of Hercules to no purpose, I found it was in- 
accessible to all but an eagle, and ig^nominiously owned 
myself beaten, and contented myself with lower subjects. 
Round the base of the rocks I found innumerable 
pods, berries, and flowers that were new to me. My little 
guide with his bare feet skipped over the rocks like a 
goat, familiar with every feature, while I, left behind, 
toiled wearily over, half-baked with the scorching heat 
of the sun, and wrestling against a wind that threatened 
to carry me off my legs and appeared well able to bear 
us over the rocks on to the plains below. The view in 
front of us was very grand, a sea of peaks falling away 
in the remotest distance across the lonely expanse, but 
the intensity of the solitude gave me a feeling of 
melancholy and a chilly sense of isolation from all 
that I loved. 
The drive back to Muldiva was again made up of 
a series of climbs over rocks, and the buggy needed to 
be a strong one. Under the hanging rock where I 
made my sketch, we had lunch, and hitched up the 
buggy to rest the horse, who was the pluckiest of his 
kind. No obstacles seemed to daunt his courage, and 
the difficulties of bogs, logs, swamps or rocks (over 
which he climbed like a goat) were to him mere trifles. 
The hotel was in a state of rabble when I got back. 
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