Typee by Herman Melville
page 113 of 408 (27%)
page 113 of 408 (27%)
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of the ravine. Soon we were saluted by a sound in advance, that
grew by degrees louder and louder, as the noise of the cataract we were leaving behind gradually died on our ears. 'Another precipice for us, Toby.' 'Very good; we can descend them, you know--come on.' Nothing indeed appeared to depress or intimidate this intrepid fellow. Typees or Niagaras, he was as ready to engage one as the other, and I could not avoid a thousand times congratulating myself upon having such a companion in an enterprise like the present. After an hour's painful progress, we reached the verge of another fall, still loftier than the preceding and flanked both above and below with the same steep masses of rock, presenting, however, here and there narrow irregular ledges, supporting a shallow soil, on which grew a variety of bushes and trees, whose bright verdure contrasted beautifully with the foamy waters that flowed between them. Toby, who invariably acted as pioneer, now proceeded to reconnoitre. On his return, he reported that the shelves of rock on our right would enable us to gain with little risk the bottom of the cataract. Accordingly, leaving the bed of the stream at the very point where it thundered down, we began crawling along one of those sloping ledges until it carried us to within a few feet of another that inclined downwards at a still sharper angle, and upon which, by assisting each other we managed to alight in |
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