It rained so heavily in the night that we put up the tent and were glad of its warm shelter. Morning came with pearl-grey mists in the valley. We worked like slaves, and our hands became very sore with the new cargo-ropes.
RIVER SENGUERR, WHERE DISASTER OVERTOOK US
The next day, had I but known it, marked the last of our misfortunes, for after that we enjoyed as good luck as we had hitherto experienced the reverse.
We spent most of the morning in slowly marching a couple of leagues, and then Scrivenor, who was leading, came back to say that our way was barred by a sheer cliff, close under which the river ran. Burbury, however, was of the opinion that it would be easier to proceed than to attempt to scale the tall barranca, which was our only alternative choice. We straggled across the half-dry marshy grass that fringed the river-bed, which here winds greatly.
Presently we climbed on to a steep slope on the cliffs, where directly below us the river ran with a current of about three knots. The passage along this slope was very difficult, and we were driving the horses with infinite care. The face of the cliff was scarred with the traces of a landslip. One of the horses, the Old Zaino, so called not because of any weight of years, but on account of the gravity of his demeanour, climbed up and up, in spite of all our efforts, among the shifting earth and loose stones until he was some hundred feet above the main body of the troop. He was a tall, ewe-necked animal, and always bore an exasperating expression of insulted dignity. He was carrying a cargo of flour.
When he had, in his own opinion, managed to get sufficiently ahead of his companions, he stopped dead and looked down upon us with a baleful eye as we toiled beneath him. Then suddenly, but methodically, he began to descend towards us in a succession of devastating bucks. No cargo, tied with ropes, could withstand such treatment. The cinch gave way, and he and his pack arrived simultaneously in the middle of the troop.
