Page 54 - erewhon

CHAPTER VI: INTO

EREWHON

nd now I found myself on a narrow path which fol-
Alowed a small watercourse. I was too glad to have an
easy track for my flight, to lay hold of the full significance
of its existence. The thought, however, soon presented it-
self to me that I must be in an inhabited country, but one
which was yet unknown. What, then, was to be my fate at
the hands of its inhabitants? Should I be taken and offered
up as a burnt-offering to those hideous guardians of the
pass? It might be so. I shuddered at the thought, yet the hor-
rors of solitude had now fairly possessed me; and so dazed
was I, and chilled, and woebegone, that I could lay hold of
no idea firmly amid the crowd of fancies that kept wander-
ing in upon my brain.
I hurried onward—down, down, down. More streams
came in; then there was a bridge, a few pine logs thrown
over the water; but they gave me comfort, for savages do not
make bridges. Then I had a treat such as I can never con-
vey on paper—a moment, perhaps, the most striking and
unexpected in my whole life—the one I think that, with
some three or four exceptions, I would most gladly have
again, were I able to recall it. I got below the level of the
clouds, into a burst of brilliant evening sunshine, I was fac-