At last the swamp bottom began to slope upwards a little, with theresult that as the land dried through natural drainage, the reeds grewthinner by degrees, until finally they ceased and we found ourselves onfirmer ground; indeed, upon the lowest slopes of the great mountain thatI have mentioned, that now towered above us, forbidden and majestic.
I had made a little map in my pocket-book of the various twists andturns of the road through that vast Slough of Despond, marking them fromhour to hour as we followed its devious wanderings. On studying thisat the end of that part of our journey I realised afresh how utterlyimpossible it would have been for us to thread that misty maze where afew false steps would always have meant death by suffocation, had it notbeen for the spoor of those Amahagger travelling immediately ahead of uswho were acquainted with its secrets. Had they been friendly guides theycould not have done us a better turn.
What I wondered was why they had not tried to ambush us in the reeds,since our fires must have shown them that we were close upon theirheels. That they did try to burn us out was clear from certain evidencesthat I found, but fortunately at this season of the year in the absenceof a strong wind the rank reeds were too green to catch fire. For therest I was soon to learn the reason of their neglect to attack us inthat dense cover.