Page 44 - erewhon

CHAPTER V: THE RIVER

AND THE RANGE

y next business was to descend upon the river. I had
Mlost sight of the pass which I had seen from the saddle,
but had made such notes of it that I could not fail to find
it. I was bruised and stiff, and my boots had begun to give,
for I had been going on rough ground for more than three
weeks; but, as the day wore on, and I found myself descend-
ing without serious difficulty, I became easier. In a couple
of hours I got among pine forests where there was little un-
dergrowth, and descended quickly till I reached the edge
of another precipice, which gave me a great deal of trouble,
though I eventually managed to avoid it. By about three or
four o’clock I found myself on the river-bed.
From calculations which I made as to the height of the
valley on the other side the saddle over which I had come,
I concluded that the saddle itself could not be less than
nine thousand feet high; and I should think that the river-
bed, on to which I now descended, was three thousand feet
above the sea-level. The water had a terrific current, with a
fall of not less than forty to fifty feet per mile. It was certain-
ly the river next to the northward of that which flowed past
my master’s run, and would have to go through an impass-
able gorge (as is commonly the case with the rivers of that