"I had reached the other side of the forest, and the sun was risen a considerable way; I saw something dim lying before me, and a thick fog resting over it. Ere long my path began to mount, at one time I was climbing hills, at another winding among rocks; and I now guessed that I must be among the neighbouring Mountains; a thought that made me shudder in my loneliness. For, living in the plain country, I had never seen a hill; and the very word Mountains, when I heard talk of them, had been a sound of terror to my young ear. I had not the heart to go back, my fear itself drove me on; often I looked round affrighted when the breezes rustled over me among the trees, or the stroke of some distant woodman sounded far through the still morning. And when I began to meet with charcoal-men and miners, and heard their foreign way of speech, I had nearly fainted for terror. "I passed through several villages; begging now and then, for I felt hungry and thirsty; and fashioning my answers as I best could when questions were put to me. In this manner I had wandered on some four days, when I came upon a little footpath, which led me farther and farther from the highway. The rocks about me now assumed a different and far stranger form. They were cliffs so piled on one another, that it looked as if the first gust of wind would hurl them all this way and that. I knew not whether to go on or stop. Till now I had slept by night in the woods, for it was the finest season of the year, or in some remote shepherd's hut; but here I saw no human dwelling at all, and could not hope to find one in this wilderness; the crags grew more and more frightful; I had many a time to glide along by the very edge of dreadful abysses; by degrees my footpath became fainter, and at last all traces of it vanished from beneath me. I was utterly comfortless; I wept and screamed; and my voice came echoing back from the rocky valleys with a sound that terrified me. The night now came on, and I sought out a mossy nook to lie down in. I could not sleep; in the darkness I heard the strangest noises; sometimes I took them to proceed from wild-beasts, sometimes from wind moaning through the rocks, sometimes from unknown birds. I prayed; and did not sleep till towards morning.