At last they pointed out a good
place for an encampment, receiving in return a trifling _backshish_,
collected from the whole caravan.
A few days later, the travellers, having started at two in the morning,
entered a magnificent mountain-valley, which had been cloven through the
solid rock by the waters of a copious stream. A narrow stony path
followed the course of the stream upward. The moon shone in unclouded
light; or it would have been difficult even for the well-trained horses
of the caravan to have kept their footing along the dangerous way,
encumbered as it was with fallen masses of rock.
Like chamois, however, they scrambled up the steep mountain-side, and
safely carried their riders round frightful projections and past
dangerous, dizzy precipices. So wild, so romantic was the scene, with
its shifting lights and shadows, its sudden bursts of silvery lustre
where the valley lay open to the moon, and its depths of darkness in many
a winding recess, that even Madame Pfeiffer's uncultured companions were
irresistibly moved by its influence; and as they rode along not a sound
was heard but the clatter of the horses' hoofs, and the fall of rolling
stones into the chasm below. But all at once thick clouds gathered over
the moon, and the gloom became so intense that the travellers could
scarcely discern each one his fellow.
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