a great effect upon them, for here, as in all other
countries of the East, any writing is looked upon by the uneducated
people as a mystery, and is held in high respect; and at last they said
they would take us to a place where we should find a person capable of
reading it. The thing which most provoked me was that the fellows seemed
not to have the slightest fear of us; they did not even take the trouble
to demand our arms: my much cherished "patent four-barrelled travelling
pistol" they evidently considered too small to be dangerous; and I felt
it as a kind of personal insult that they deputed only two of their
number to convoy us to the residence of the learned person who was to
read the letter. They managed matters, however, in a scientific way: the
bridles of our horses were turned over their heads and tied each to the
horse that went before; one of our captors walked in front and the other
behind; but just when I thought an opportunity had arrived to shake off
this yoke, I perceived that the whole pass was guarded, and wherever the
road was a little wider or turned a corner round a rock or a clump of
trees, there were other long guns peeping out from among the bushes,
with the bearers of which our two conquerors exchanged pass-words. Thus
we marched along, the robber who went first apparently caring nothing
about us, but the one in the rear having his gun cocked and ready to
shoot any one of us who should turn restive. The road, which ascended
rapidly, was rather too dangerous to be agreeable, being a narrow path
cut on the side of a very steep mountain; at one time the track lay
across a steep slope of blue marl, which afforded the most insecure
footing for our horses: all mountain-travellers are aware how much more
dangerous this kind of road is than a firm ledge of rock, however
narrow.

We had now got very high, and the ground was sprinkled with patches of
ice and snow, which rendered the footing insecure; and frequently large
masses of the road, disturbed by our passing over it, gave way beneath
our feet, and set off bounding and crashing among the box trees until it
was broken into powder on the rocks below.

In process of time we got into a cloud which hid everything from us, and
going still higher we got above the cloud into a region of broken crags
and rocks and pine-trees, among which there was a large wooden house or
shed. It seemed all roof, and was made of long spars of trees sloping
towards each ot