92 
TRAVELS 
attended by an hort of afifailants almoft as numerous as that by 
■which we had been purfued to the cabin. 
We had yet forty miles to travel before we fhould arrive at Al¬ 
ien, though we had already advanced twenty miles from the place 
where we left the river. The ftorm that had prevailed in the 
night had not brought fine w r eather by a dififipation of the clouds. 
The fpace over which we were to go this day prefented a profpe<rt 
almoft as dreary as the day before. It feemed to us that we were 
fometimes going higher up in the mountains than we had hitherto 
done : we ftill found fnow as we proceeded. Our fervant was par¬ 
ticularly charmed with the idea of our being fo near the clouds : 
he feemed to imagine that he was already diverted of a part of his 
mortality; and the better to enjoy the illufion, he would fome¬ 
times go out of his way and take a circuit, in order to get higher 
up in the atmofphere. At one time he was wholly out of our 
fight: w r e began to call him, but he did not hear us; we waited 
for him, but he did not come; we fired our guns that he might 
know whereabouts we were : ftill he did not make his appear¬ 
ance. If he had been a handfomer youth, w r e might have been 
induced to fufpert that Jupiter had fent his eagle to fetch him, as 
he did in former times for Ganymede; but his figure prevented 
any fuch apprehenfion. He returned to us at laft; and on our 
interrogating him why he left his company, he faid, that feeing 
a beautiful cloud very near him, he had run after it for the pur- 
pofe of knowing better than he did what kind of thing it was; 
but 
