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Show l•'igure 45.- 'I'bo Human Pickle. A DIFFICULT WAY. 123 his bow and arrows in one hand, and a small cane in the other. These lndiaus all carry canes with a crooked handle, they say to kill rattlesnakes, and to pull rabbits ft·om their holes. The valley is high up in tho mountain, and we descentl from it, by a rocky, precipitous trail, down, down, down for two long, weary hours, leading our ponies and stumbling over the rocks. At last wo are at the foot of the mountain, standing on a little knoll, from which we can look into a canon below. Into this wo descend, and then we follow it for miles, cla.m bering down and still down. Often wo cross beds of lava, that have boon poured into the cailon by lateral channels, and these angular fragments of basalt make the way very rough . for tho animals. About two o'clock tho guide halts us with his wand, and springing over the rocks he is lost in a gulch. In a few minutes he rctur11s, and tolls ns thoro is a little water below in a pocket. It is vile and stinking, and our ponies refuse to drink it. We pass on, still over descending. A mi1e or two from the water basin we come to a precipice, more than a thousand foot to the bottom. There is a canon running at a greater depth, and at right angles to this, into which this enters by the precipice; and this econd canon is a lateral one to the greater one, in the bottom of which we are to find tho river. Searching about, we find a way by which we can descend along tho shelves, and steps, and piles of broken rocks. W o start leading Ollr ponies; a wall upon our loft; unknown depths on our right. At places our way is along shelves so narrow, or so sloping, that I ache with foar lest a pony should make a misstep, and knock a man over the cliffs with him. Now and then we start the loose rocks under our feet, and over the cliffs they go, thundering down, down, as the echoes roll through distant canons. At last we pass along a level shelf for some distance, then we turn to the right, and zigzag down a stoop slope to the bottom. Now we pass along this lower canon, for two .or three miles, to where it terminates in the Grand Carron, us tho other ended in this, only the river is 1,800 feet below us, aud it seems, at this distance, to be but a creek. Our withered guide, tho human pickle, seats himself on a rock, and seems wonderfully amused at our discomfiture, for we can see no way by which to d scond to the river. After some minutes, he quietly rises, and, beckoning us to follow, he points out a narrow sloping shelf on tho right, and this is to be • |