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