Chapter Nine - Page 2

We were fain to pacify them by chewing the
tender bark of roots and twigs, which, if they did not afford us
nourishment, were at least sweet and pleasant to the taste.

Our progress along the steep watercourse was necessarily slow,
and by noon we had not advanced more than a mile. It was
somewhere near this part of the day that the noise of falling
waters, which we had faintly caught in the early morning, became
more distinct; and it was not long before we were arrested by a
rocky precipice of nearly a hundred feet in depth, that extended
all across the channel, and over which the wild stream poured in
an unbroken leap. On each hand the walls of the ravine presented
their overhanging sides both above and below the fall, affording
no means whatever of avoiding the cataract by taking a circuit
round it.

'What's to be done now, Toby?' said I.

'Why,' rejoined he, 'as we cannot retreat, I suppose we must keep
shoving along.'

'Very true, my dear Toby; but how do you purpose accomplishing
that desirable object?'

'By jumping from the top of the fall, if there be no other way,'
unhesitatingly replied my companion: 'it will be much the
quickest way of descent; but as you are not quite as active as I
am, we will try some other way.'

And, so saying, he crept cautiously along and peered over into
the abyss, while I remained wondering by what possible means we
could overcome this apparently insuperable obstruction. As soon
as my companion had completed his survey, I eagerly inquired the
result.

'The result of my observations you wish to know, do you?' began
Toby, deliberately, with one of his odd looks: 'well, my lad, the
result of my observations is very quickly imparted. It is at
present uncertain which of our two necks will have the honour to
be broken first; but about a hundred to one would be a fair bet
in favour of the man who takes the first jump.'

'Then it is an impossible thing, is it?' inquired I gloomily.

'No, shipmate; on the contrary, it is the easiest thing in life:
the only awkward point is the sort of usage which our unhappy
limbs may receive when we arrive at the bottom, and what sort of
travelling trim we shall be in afterwards. But follow me now,
and I will show you the only chance we have.' With this he
conducted me to the verge of the cataract, and pointed along the
side of the ravine to a number of curious looking roots, some
three or four inches in thickness, and several feet long, which,
after twisting among the fissures of the rock, shot
perpendicularly from it and ran tapering to a point in the air,
hanging over the gulf like so many dark icicles. They covered
nearly the entire surface of one side of the gorge, the