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A PRECIPITOUS PATH AND A LEAKY BOAT. 305
back without severe humiliation. I walked along it for
some distance; and finding that it grew worse as I
went further, I returned to the most promising point,
and stood for some time in doubt whether to hang as
far down as possible, and then drop, or to make a long
journey round—until at last, in a moment of
courageous determination, I pitched my knapsack down, so
as to be compelled to follow. There is a steep slope,
covered with bushy plants, at the foot of the rock-wall,
and the fate of my knapsack was far from encouraging,
for it rolled, and bounded, and bumped over and over a
terrible distance down this slope; and when I dropped
I followed its example to a small extent, but with no
other damage than torn clothes and some scratches.
After scrambling on still farther, 1 came opposite a
saeter situated on a slope on the other side of the
river; and at the foot of the slope was something that
appeared like a boat. I shouted loudly and long, and
was just about giving up hopes of a ferry, when an old
man, bent nearly double, emerged from the saeter, and
moved slowly down the hill; he then drew the boat to
the bank, and spent a considerable time in baling water
from it. At last he stepped into it and rowed across;
first pulling with the oars, and then, while the boat
moved on by the impulse thus given, baling out water
—then another pull, and more bowls of water over the
side,—and so on until lie reached the shore, with the
boat nearly filled. The boat was a curiosity, being made
simply of two squared pieces of the stump of a tree,
forming the stem and stern; to these ends some deal boards
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