When the sun had sunk towards the precipitate west, and the evening shadows

grew long, we prepared to ascend the mountain. The attention that we were

obliged to pay to the sick, made our progress slow. The winding road,

though steep, presented a confined view of rocky fields and hills, each

hiding the other, till our farther ascent disclosed them in succession. We

were seldom shaded from the declining sun, whose slant beams were instinct

with exhausting heat. There are times when minor difficulties grow gigantic

-times, when as the Hebrew poet expressively terms it, "the grasshopper

is a burthen;" so was it with our ill fated party this evening. Adrian,

usually the first to rally his spirits, and dash foremost into fatigue and

hardship, with relaxed limbs and declined head, the reins hanging loosely

in his grasp, left the choice of the path to the instinct of his horse, now

and then painfully rousing himself, when the steepness of the ascent

required that he should keep his seat with better care. Fear and horror

encompassed me. Did his languid air attest that he also was struck with

contagion? How long, when I look on this matchless specimen of mortality,

may I perceive that his thought answers mine? how long will those limbs

obey the kindly spirit within? how long will light and life dwell in the

eyes of this my sole remaining friend? Thus pacing slowly, each hill

surmounted, only presented another to be ascended; each jutting corner only

discovered another, sister to the last, endlessly. Sometimes the pressure

of sickness in one among us, caused the whole cavalcade to halt; the call

for water, the eagerly expressed wish to repose; the cry of pain, and

suppressed sob of the mourner--such were the sorrowful attendants of our

passage of the Jura.

548

The Last Man