about seven o'clock
Then when Don Sanchez had solemnly debated whether we should not awake Don Lopez to say farewell , and we had persuaded him that it would be kinder to let him sleep on , we mounted into our high , fantastic saddles , and set out towards the mountains , our guides leading , and we following close upon their heels as our mules could get , but by no guidance of ours , though we held the reins , for these creatures are very sagacious and so pertinacious and opiniastre that I believe though you pulled their heads off they would yet go their own way . Our road at first lay across a rising plain , very wild and scrubby , as I imagine , by the frequent deviations of our beast , and then through a forest of cork oaks , which keep their leaves all the year through , and here , by reason of the great shade , we went , not knowing whither , as if blindfold , only we were conscious of being on rough , rising ground , by the jolting of our mules and the clatter of their hoofs upon stones ; but after a wearisome , long spell of this business , the trees growing more scattered and a thin grey light creeping through , we could make out that we were all together , which was some comfort . From these oaks , we passed into a wood of chestnuts , and still going up and up , but by such devious , unseen ways , that I think no man , stranger to these parts , could pick it out for himself in broad daylight , we came thence into a great stretch of pine trees , with great rocks scattered amongst them , as if some mountain had been blown up and fallen in a huge shower of fragments . And so , still for ever toiling and scambling upwards , we found ourselves about seven o'clock , as I should judge by the light beyond the trees and upon the side of the mountain , with the whole champaign laid out like a carpet under us on one side , prodigious slopes of rock on either hand , with only a shrub or a twisted fir here and there , and on the further side a horrid stark ravine with a cascade of water thundering down in its midst , and a peak rising beyond , covered with snow , which glittered in the sunlight like a monstrous heap of white salt . After resting at this point half an hour to breathe our mules , the guides got into their saddles , and we did likewise , and so on again along the side of the ravine , only not of a cluster as heretofore , but one behind the other in a long line , the mules falling into this order of themselves as if they had travelled the path an hundred times ; but there was no means of going otherwise , the path being atrociously narrow and steep , and only fit for wild goats , there being no landrail , coping , or anything in the world to stay one from being hurled down a thousand feet , and the mountain sides so inclined that 't was a miracle the mules could find foothold and keep their balance . From the bottom of the ravine came a constant roar of falling water , though we could spy it only now and then leaping down from one chasm to another ; and more than once our guides would cry to us to stop -LRB- and that where our mules had to keep shifting their feet to get a hold -RRB- while some huge boulder , loosened by the night 's rain , flew down across our path in terrific bounds from the heights above , making the very mountain tremble with the shock . Not a word spoke we ; nay , we had scarce courage at times to draw breath , for two hours and more of this fearful passage , with no encouragement from our guides save that one of them did coolly take out a knife and peel an onion as though he had been on a level , broad road ; and then , reaching a flat space , we came to a stand again before an ascent that promised to be worse than that we had done .