... Where the road is not natural
rock, it is composed of huge fragments of stone in the rough state,
smooth as the face of a mirror, haphazardly placed at such dangerous
spots as to show that no idea of building was employed when the road was
made. Sometimes one steps twenty inches from one stone to another, and
were it not that the pathway is winding, although the turning and
twisting makes unending toil, progress in the ascent would be
impossible.... Mules are passing me--puffing, panting, perspiring. Poor
brutes! One has fallen, and in rolling has dragged another with him, and
there the twain lie motionless on those horrid stones while the
exhausted muleteers raise their loads to allow them slowly to regain
their feet. There are some hundreds of them now on the hill."
This description was made in shorthand notes in my notebook as I
ascended. And I find again:--
"I have seen one or two places in Szech'wan like this, but the danger is
incomparably less and the road infinitely superior. We pull and pant
and puff up, up, up, around each bend, and my men can scarce go forward.
Huge pieces of rock have fallen from the cliff, and well-nigh block the
way, and just ahead a landslip has carried off part of our course.
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