t your legs, and tear your coat skirts; so obstructing you in
every conceivable manner and in every conceivable direction, that they
seem possessed with a living power of opposition, and commissioned by
some evil genius of Fairy Mythology to prevent mortal footsteps from
intruding into the valley. Whether you try a zig-zag or a straight
course, whether you go up or down, it is the same thing--you must
squeeze, and push, and jostle your way through the crowd of bushes, just
as you would through a crowd of men--or else stand still, surrounded by
leaves, like "a Jack-in-the-Green," and wait for the very remote chance
of somebody coming to help you out.

Forcing our road incessantly through these obstructions, for a full
half-hour, and taking care to keep our only guide--the sound of the
running-water--always within hearing, we came at last to a little break
in the vegetation, crossed the stream at this place, and found, on the
opposite side of the bank, a faintly-marked track, which might have been
once a footpath. Following it as well as we could among the branches
and brambles, and now ascending steep ground, we soon heard the dash of
the waterfall. But to attempt to see it, was no easy undertaking. The
trees, the bushes, and the wild herbage grew here thicker than ever,
stretching in perfect canopies of leaves so closely across the
overhanging banks of the stream, as entirely to hide it from view. We
heard the monotonous, eternal splashing of the water, close at our ears,
and yet vainly tried to obtain even a glimpse of the fall. Adverse Fate
led us up and down, and round and round, and backwards and forwards,
amid a labyrinth of overgrown bushes which might have bewildered an
Australian settler; and still the nymph of the waterfall coyly hid
herself from our eyes. Our ears informed us that the invisible object of
which we were in search was of very inconsiderable height; our patience
was evaporating; our time was wasting away--in short, to confess the
truth here, as I have confessed it elsewhere in these pages, let me
acknowledge that we both concurred in a sound determination to consult
our own convenience, and give up the attempt to discover Nighton's
Keive!

Our wanderings, however, though useless enough in one direction,
procured us this compensating advantage in another: they led us
accidentally to the exact scene of the legend which we knew to be
connected with this part of the valley, and which had, indeed, fir