Accordingly, leaving the bed of the stream at the very point where it
thundered down, we began crawling along one of those sloping ledges
until it carried us to within a few feet of another that inclined
downwards at a still sharper angle, and upon which, by assisting each
other we managed to alight in safety. We warily crept along this,
steadying ourselves by the naked roots of the shrubs that clung to every
fissure. As we proceeded, the narrow path became still more contracted,
rendering it difficult for us to maintain our footing, until suddenly,
as we reached an angle of the wall of rock where we had expected it to
widen, we perceived to our consternation that a yard or two further on
it abruptly terminated at a place we could not possibly hope to pass.

Toby as usual led the van, and in silence I waited to learn from him how
he proposed to extricate us from this new difficulty.

'Well, my boy,' I exclaimed, after the expiration of several minutes,
during which time my companion had not uttered a word, 'what's to be
done now?'

He replied in a tranquil tone, that probably the best thing we could do
in our present strait was to get out of it as soon as possible.

'Yes, my dear Toby, but tell me how we are to get out of it.'

'Something in this sort of style,' he replied, and at the same moment to
my horror he slipped sideways off the rocks and, as I then thought, by
good fortune merely, alighted among the spreading branches of a species
of palm tree, that shooting its hardy roots along a ledge below, curved
its trunk upwards into the air, and presented a thick mass of foliage
about twenty feet below the spot where we had thus suddenly been brought
to a standstill. I involuntarily held my breath, expecting to see the
form of my companion, after being sustained for a moment by the branches
of the tree, sink through their frail support, and fall headlong to
the bottom. To my surprise and joy, however, he recovered himself, and
disentangling his limbs from the fractured branches, he peered out from
his leafy bed, and shouted lustily, 'Come on, my hearty there is no
other alternative!' and with this he ducked beneath the foliage, and
slipping down the trunk, stood in a moment at least fifty feet beneath
me, upon the broad shelf of rock from which sprung the tree he had
descended.

What would I not have given at that moment to have been by his side. The
feat he had just accomplished seemed little less than miraculous