Their route lay in the direction of a range of distant hills, which they judged it was the intention of their captor to cross; and as they went they found the country gradually changing its character by subtle gradations, growing ever more fertile and more highly cultivated with every mile of progress, while the houses increased in number and clustered more thickly together. At length, after passing through one of these hamlets, they emerged upon a narrow field path, which widened somewhat when the next hamlet was passed, and so gradually became a more prominent feature until ultimately it developed into a full-blown road, which, rough and uneven at first, steadily improved in appearance and quality until it became a very excellent and much-used thoroughfare, shaded by trees on either hand. In short the country, which on its extreme frontier was a perfect wilderness, steadily improved with every mile of progress toward its interior, as regarded the evidences of a high state of civilisation. One of the strangest things, however, which came under the notice of the Englishmen was that, from the moment of their arrest, the inhabitants--whom they encountered in ever-increasing numbers as the day wore on--manifested the most absolute indifference with regard to them, not even deigning to cast a second glance upon what was clearly a most novel and unusual sight in that country. At sunset the party encamped at the foot of the hills toward which they had been journeying all day, and which proved to be much more lofty, and at a much greater distance, than they had imagined them to be when they were first sighted; and the whole of the next day was consumed in climbing, by means of an excellent road, to the summit of a pass where, having safely negotiated a short length of exceedingly narrow and difficult roadway between two enormous vertical cliffs, they emerged upon a small plateau of rich grassland that afforded good camping ground for the night.