makes me shudder. A small table of rock which projected over the
precipice on one side of the stream, and was drenched by the spray of the
fall, sustained a huge trunk of a tree which must have been deposited
there by some heavy freshet. It lay obliquely, with one end resting on the
rock and the other supported by the side of the ravine. Against it we
placed in a sloping direction a number of the half-decayed boughs that
were strewn about, and covering the whole with twigs and leaves, awaited
the morning's light beneath such shelter as it afforded.

During the whole of this night the continual roaring of the cataract--the
dismal moaning of the gale through the trees--the pattering of the rain,
and the profound darkness, affected my spirits to a degree which nothing
had ever before produced. Wet, half-famished, and chilled to the heart
with the dampness of the place, and nearly wild with the pain I endured, I
fairly cowered down to the earth under this multiplication of hardships,
and abandoned myself to frightful anticipations of evil; and my companion,
whose spirit at last was a good deal broken, scarcely uttered a word
during the whole night.

At length the day dawned upon us, and rising from our miserable pallet, we
stretched our stiffened joints, and after eating all that remained of our
bread, prepared for the last stage of our journey.

I will not recount every hairbreadth escape, and every fearful difficulty
that occurred before we succeeded in reaching the bosom of the valley. As
I have already described similar scenes, it will be sufficient to say that
at length, after great toil and great dangers, we both stood with no limbs
broken at the head of that magnificent vale which five days before had so
suddenly burst upon my sight, and almost beneath the shadow of those very
cliffs from whose summits we had gazed upon the prospect.

CHAPTER IX

The head of the valley--Cautious advance--A path--Fruit--Discovery of
two of the natives--Their singular conduct--Approach towards the
inhabited parts of the vale--Sensation produced by our
appearance--Reception at the house of one of the natives.

How to obtain the fruit which we felt convinced must grow near at hand was
our first thought.

Typee or Happar? A frightful death at the hands of the fiercest of
cannibals, or a kindly reception from a gentler race of savages? Which?
But it was too lat