I Say Advisedly - 'I Should Have Been Drowned.' These Upper Rivers Of
The Hills Run High And Low According To Storms And To The Melting Of
The Snows.
The river of Parma (for this torrent at last fed Parma)
was higher than the rest.
Even the molinar, the god of that valley, had to pick his way
carefully, and the young man on stilts had to go before, much higher
than mortal men, and up above the water. I could see him as he went,
and I could see that, to tell the truth, there was a ford - a rare
thing in upper waters, because in the torrent-sources of rivers either
the upper waters run over changeless rocks or else over gravel and
sand. Now if they run over rocks they have their isolated shallow
places, which any man may find, and their deep - evident by the still
and mysterious surface, where fish go round and round in the hollows;
but no true ford continuous from side to side. So it is in Scotland.
And if they run over gravel and sand, then with every storm or 'spate'
they shift and change. But here by some accident there ran - perhaps a
shelf or rock, perhaps a ruin of a Roman bridge - something at least
that was deep enough and solid enough to be a true ford - and that we
followed.
The molinar - even the molinar - was careful of his way. Twice he
waited, waist high, while the man on stilts before us suddenly lost
ground and plunged to his feet.
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