ations.

When we had done supper it was quite dark. The silence and freshness of
the night, the occasional sharp cry of the wood-hen, the ruddy glow of
the fire, the subdued rushing of the river, the sombre forest, and the
immediate foreground of our saddles packs and blankets, made a picture
worthy of a Salvator Rosa or a Nicolas Poussin. I call it to mind and
delight in it now, but I did not notice it at the time. We next to never
know when we are well off: but this cuts two ways,--for if we did, we
should perhaps know better when we are ill off also; and I have sometimes
thought that there are as many ignorant of the one as of the other. He
who wrote, "O fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint agricolas," might have
written quite as truly, "O infortunatos nimium sua si mala norint"; and
there are few of us who are not protected from the keenest pain by our
inability to see what it is that we have done, what we are suffering, and
what we truly are. Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us
our appearance only.

We found as soft a piece of ground as we could--though it was all
stony--and having collected grass and so disposed of ourselves that we
had a little hollow for our hip-bones, we strapped our blankets around us
and went to sleep. Waking in the night I saw the stars overhead and the
moonlight bright upon the mountains. The river was ever rushing; I heard
one of our horses neigh to its companion, and was assured that they were
still at hand; I had no care of mind or body, save that I had doubtless
many difficulties to overcome; there came upon me a delicious sense of
peace, a fulness of contentment which I do not believe can be felt by any
but those who have spent days consecutively on horseback, or at any rate
in the open air.

Next morning we found our last night's tea-leaves frozen at the bottom of
the pannikins, though it was not nearly the beginning of autumn; we
breakfasted as we had supped, and were on our way by six o'clock. In
half an hour we had entered the gorge, and turning round a corner we bade
farewell to the last sight of my master's country.

The gorge was narrow and precipitous; the river was now only a few yards
wide, and roared and thundered against rocks of many tons in weight; the
sound was deafening, for there was a great volume of water. We were two
hours in making less than a mile, and that with danger, sometimes in the
river and sometimes on the rock. There was that