Page 88 - The snake's pass

"
76 THE snake's pass. ;
where it curved around the base of a grassy mound, or
shoulder of the mountain.
" Is it a dangerous bog ? " I queried.
" Eather It is just as bad a bit of soft bog as ever I
!
saw. I wouldn't like to see anyone or anything that I
!
cared for try to cross it
"Why not?"
" Because at any moment they might sink through
it
and then, good-bye—no human strength or skill could
ever save them."
"
"Is it a quagmire, then ? or like a quicksand ?
" Like either, or both. Nay ! it is more treacherous
than either. You may call it, if 'you are poetically in-
clined, a 'carpet of death ! ' What you see is simply a film
or skin of vegetation of a very low kind, mixed with the
mould of decayed vegetable fibre and grit and rubbish
of all kinds which have somehow got mixed into it,
floating on a sea of ooze and slime—of something half
liquid half solid, and of an unknown depth. It will bear
up a certain weight, for there is a degree of cohesion in
it ; but it is not all of equal cohesive power, and if one
—
were to step on the wrong spot " He was silent.
"
" What then ?
" Only a matter of specific gravity ! A body sud-
denly immersed would, when the air of the lungs had
escaped and the rigor mortis had set in, probably sink a
considerable distance ; then it would rise after nine
days, when decomposition began to generate gases, and
make an effort to reach the top. Not succeeding in