Every little runlet and
dribble is harvested and conveyed by subterranean channels to the
main ditch. But so heavily does it rain at times that countless
spillways let the surplus escape to the sea.
The horse-trail is not very wide. Like the engineer who built it,
it dares anything. Where the ditch plunges through the mountain, it
climbs over; and where the ditch leaps a gorge on a flume, the
horse-trail takes advantage of the ditch and crosses on top of the
flume. That careless trail thinks nothing of travelling up or down
the faces of precipices. It gouges its narrow way out of the wall,
dodging around waterfalls or passing under them where they thunder
down in white fury; while straight overhead the wall rises hundreds
of feet, and straight beneath it sinks a thousand. And those
marvellous mountain horses are as unconcerned as the trail. They
fox-trot along it as a matter of course, though the footing is
slippery with rain, and they will gallop with their hind feet
slipping over the edge if you let them.
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