Now, by the sixth hour, I was come into a part of the Country where
there were an exceeding abundance of steam fountains and sprayings and
great upboilings of water in basins of rock; and the air did be full of
the sounds and the roarings of the boilings and the spoutings, and of a
hot mist and spray; so that, truly, I had scarce the power to see to my
front, nor to any side.

And here, presently, I made a pause, and did eat and drink, and
afterward went forward again; and I did keep the shore of the sea always
to my right, and so did go proper to my way; yet with no great ease; for
the sea also did steam very strong in that part, and because of this
great fog of steam, I was surely much laboured to make a great speed,
lest unseeing I go headlong into an hole of the boiling water.

And in the ninth hour, I did go clear of the hot boilings, and was come
again free of the mist and the steam, and might look with mine eyes to
my going. And, surely, as I did perceive, I was come to the end of the
great sea that had been ever to my right; for it did go against the feet
of great and monstrous mountains, that went upward for ever into the
night, and did seem as that they were the hither wall of that strange
Country of Fire and Water. And so was I stood there very much taken upon
doubt; for how should I go farther.

And after that I had been there a while, in a bewilderment of doubt and
of wit, I went to the left, along the feet of the mountains; and truly
this but of common sense; for how might I go any other way, save I go
back again!

And at the twelfth hour I eat two of the tablets, and drank some of the
water, and went forward once more. And lo! at the fifteenth hour, I was
come to a place between the mountains, even an upward gorge, very dark
and gloomy, and without light for a great way.

And, in verity, I did not want to go up the gorge, in that it was so
dreary a place and narrow and horrid and drear-seeming, after the light
and wideness of the Country in which I did yet stand.

And presently, I did go past the mouth of the gorge, that I should learn
whether there went another way out of that Country. And thiswise, for a
great hour more, along the feet of the mountains, and did presently come
to a monstrous black river, that was, maybe, a mile wide. And it to be
very shallow, and seeming as that the water scarce to cover the mud of
the bottom. And here and there a great steam did come from it, and
spirtings and m