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At a distance of some hundred feet flowed the Red Creek, and consequently plenty of fresh water was within their reach. The camp was soon organized. In less than an hour, on the edge of the forest, among the trees, a hut of branches interlaced with creepers, and pasted over with clay, offered a tolerable shelter. Their geological researches were put off till the next day.
For the rest of the day we rode, at first with our whole crew, latterly by ourselves and the two Sepoys: cantered a hundred yards or so and jog-trotted, ambled, walked, cantered again and climbed slowly up hillside paths; through damp hollows, between brakes of high reeds with beautiful fluffy seeds, under tall trees festooned with creepers with lilac flowers, and over hard sunny bits of the path with butterflies floating up against us, and overhead, orchids and pendant air roots and wild fruits.
Others wound round their trunks, like huge serpents ready to spring on their prey. Others, again twisted spirally round each other, forming vast cables of living wood, holding fast those mighty monarchs of the forest. Some of the trees were so covered with smaller creepers and parasitic plants that the parent stem was entirely concealed.
We were shown the little room not more than nine feet square where Sterne, when vicar, wrote his greatest book, "Tristram Shandy." The kitchen is still in its original condition, with its rough-beamed ceiling and huge fireplace. Like most English cottages, the walls were covered with climbing roses and creepers and there was the usual flower-garden in the rear.
And, O king, not far from the Gandhamadana, Pandu's son beheld on the sacred slopes of the Himavan covered with various trees and creepers the holy hermitage of Vrishaparva surrounded by blossoming trees growing near the cascades. And when those repressers of foes, the sons of Pandu, had recovered from fatigue, they went to the royal sage, the pious Vrishaparva and greeted him.
Where a tree had fallen within the last century or so, these creepers ramped upwards in luxuriance, their stems thick as the body of a man, drinking the shaft of light that pierced downwards, drinking it with eagerness ere the boughs above met again and starved them.
Between its great paving blocks grass sprouted, and here and there creepers and even trees had taken root and in the slow immutable process of their growth had displaced considerable masses of stone; so that there were pitfalls to be avoided. Otherwise a litter of rubble made the walking anything but good. Amber picked his way with caution, grumbling.
Hidden below, he looked up and saw her fair face in the moonlight, framed in the blossoming creepers that grew round her window, and as he looked and listened, he felt as though he had been carried away in a dream, and set down by some magician in that beautiful and enchanted garden. "Ah why are you called Romeo?" said Juliet. "Since I love you, what does it matter what you are called?"
The blacks were almost close enough to have hurled their spears at us, when, as I had given up all hope of escape, a loud cheer saluted our ears close to us, and Mr Henley with a dozen blue jackets well armed, appeared from behind a high rock overhung with lichens and creepers on our left. They presented their muskets, and the natives halted.
If the writer had to ascend this mountain again he would intrust himself to Karstens and Walter rather than to any Swiss guides he has known, for ice and snow in Alaska are not quite the same as ice and snow in the Alps or the Canadian Rockies. The loose snow was shovelled away and the steps dug in the hard snow beneath, and the creepers upon our feet gave good grip in it.
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