CHAP. IV - BEGIN THE ASCENT

Summary

With more than twenty horses and mules at day-break on the 14th of July, clattering on the flinty pavement, and with as many men shouting to their respective animals, and disputing among themselves for the lightest loads—there was no more sleep from that early hour, for any one in the inn.

Well did the muleteers understand the art of making fast on pack-saddles a large variety of goods. We distributed rope liberally amongst them, they twining it ingeniously over the burdens and around the bodies of the creatures; then taking a bend of it under the belly, they inserted a tough curved stick, and twisted ferociously, until every turn of the rope became perfectly taut; or the mule, as it falsely seemed, lifted almost bodily off his four legs, would have shrieked if he could, at the vehement stricture of all his internal organs.

Such of the men as had completed these arrangements, wanted to start off at once, and we had much difficulty in restraining them. Certain ideas, were in our mind, of keeping them altogether in the ascent of the mountain, overlooking their proceedings, and making a lightly loaded mule occasionally change burdens with one more heavily laden. We should not perhaps have made such strenuous attempts as we did towards this end, had we been fully aware of the utter impossibility of putting it in force throughout the whole day's journey; or had we been as well informed, as the experience of three months subsequently made us, of the honesty and perfect trustworthiness of these carriers.