Actually, Before My
Eyes, This Fine New Road Was Torn Away By Hastily Improvised
Torrents, Or Blocked By Landslips In Several Places, And A Little
Lower, In One Moment, A Hundred Yards Of It Disappeared, And With
Them A Fine Bridge, Which Was Deposited Aslant Across The Torrent
Lower Down.
On the descent, when things began to look very bad, and the
mountain-sides had become cascades bringing trees,
Logs, and rocks
down with them, we were fortunate enough to meet with two pack-
horses whose leaders were ignorant of the impassability of the road
to Odate, and they and my coolies exchanged loads. These were
strong horses, and the mago were skilful and courageous. They said
if we hurried we could just get to the hamlet they had left, they
thought; but while they spoke the road and the bridge below were
carried away. They insisted on lashing me to the pack-saddle. The
great stream, whose beauty I had formerly admired, was now a thing
of dread, and had to be forded four times without fords. It
crashed and thundered, drowning the feeble sound of human voices,
the torrents from the heavens hissed through the forest, trees and
logs came crashing down the hillsides, a thousand cascades added to
the din, and in the bewilderment produced by such an unusual
concatenation of sights and sounds we stumbled through the river,
the men up to their shoulders, the horses up to their backs. Again
and again we crossed. The banks being carried away, it was very
hard to get either into or out of the water; the horses had to
scramble or jump up places as high as their shoulders, all slippery
and crumbling, and twice the men cut steps for them with axes.
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