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392 from what farm the animal had been taken, well knowing that, on losing the drove, it would be able instinctively to direct its course to that spot, and this it was doing when he overtook and brought it back.

It took us eight hours of hard labour to pass the mountain: about half the time was occupied in the ascent and the other half in the descent; for there were sufficient variations in this route to break any general uniformity in our progress either up or down. The few plains which occurred were deep glens in which the animals found no footing, but plunged along, for the most part in beds of mud. In the slopes they sometimes got fixed in with their baggage in the narrow defiles of the rocks, or foundered, with all four legs so deeply stuck into the cavities as to render them incapable of all exertion: in such cases, the muleteers disburthen the animal, and with their united efforts extricate it from its thraldom. Every step is a labour: each leg is pulled out of one hole, even in the