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- 3226
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:25.200Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 3159
- text
- slipping down the trunk, stood in a moment at least fifty feet beneath
me, upon the broad shelf of rock from which sprung the tree he had
descended.
What would I not have given at that moment to have been by his side. The
feat he had just accomplished seemed little less than miraculous, and
I could hardly credit the evidence of my senses when I saw the wide
distance that a single daring act had so suddenly placed between us.
Toby’s animating ‘come on’ again sounded in my ears, and dreading to
lose all confidence in myself if I remained meditating upon the step,
I once more gazed down to assure myself of the relative bearing of the
tree and my own position, and then closing my eyes and uttering one
comprehensive ejaculation of prayer, I inclined myself over towards the
abyss, and after one breathless instant fell with a crash into the tree,
the branches snapping and cracking with my weight, as I sunk lower and
lower among them, until I was stopped by coming in contact with a sturdy
limb.
In a few moments I was standing at the foot of the tree manipulating
myself all over with a view of ascertaining the extent of the injuries
I had received. To my surprise the only effects of my feat were a few
slight contusions too trifling to care about. The rest of our descent
was easily accomplished, and in half an hour after regaining the ravine
we had partaken of our evening morsel, built our hut as usual, and
crawled under its shelter.
The next morning, in spite of our debility and the agony of hunger under
which we were now suffering, though neither of us confessed to the fact,
we struggled along our dismal and still difficult and dangerous path,
cheered by the hope of soon catching a glimpse of the valley before
us, and towards evening the voice of a cataract which had for some time
sounded like a low deep bass to the music of the smaller waterfalls,
broke upon our ears in still louder tones, and assured us that we were
approaching its vicinity.
That evening we stood on the brink of a precipice, over which the dark
stream bounded in one final leap of full 300 feet. The sheer descent
terminated in the region we so long had sought. On each side of the
fall, two lofty and perpendicular bluffs buttressed the sides of the
enormous cliff, and projected into the sea of verdure with which the
valley waved, and a range of similar projecting eminences stood disposed
in a half circle about the head if the vale. A thick canopy of trees
hung over the very verge of the fall, leaving an arched aperture for the
passage of the waters, which imparted a strange picturesqueness to the
scene.
The valley was now before us; but instead of being conducted into its
smiling bosom by the gradual descent of the deep watercourse we had thus
far pursued, all our labours now appeared to have been rendered futile
by its abrupt termination. But, bitterly disappointed, we did not
entirely despair.
As it was now near sunset we determined to pass the night where we were,
and on the morrow, refreshed by sleep, and by eating at one meal all our
stock of food, to accomplish a descent into the valley, or perish in the
attempt.
We laid ourselves down that night on a spot, the recollection of which
still makes me shudder. A small table of rock which projected over the
precipice on one side of the stream, and was drenched by the spray
of the fall, sustained a huge trunk of a tree which must have been
deposited there by some heavy freshet. It lay obliquely, with one end
resting on the rock and the other supported by the side of the ravine.
Against it we placed in a sloping direction a number of the half decayed
boughs that were strewn about, and covering the whole with twigs and
leaves, awaited the morning’s light beneath such shelter as it afforded.
- title
- Chunk 5