That fall committed me, too. Within five minutes of my first
introduction to the _macchia_ I had learnt how easily a man may be
lost in it; and in less than half of five minutes I had lost not only
my way but my temper. To pursue after the hogs was nearly hopeless:
all sound of them was swallowed up in the tangle of scrub. Yet I
held on, crawling through thickets of lentisk, tangling my legs in
creepers, pushing my head into clumps of cactus, here tearing my
hands and boots on sharp granite, there ripping my clothes on prickly
thorns. Once I found what appeared to be a goat-track. It led to
another cleft of rock, where, beating down the briers, I looked down
a chasm which ended, thirty feet below, in a whole brake of cacti.
The scent of the crushed plants was divine: and I crushed a plenty of
them.
After a struggle which must have lasted from twenty minutes to half
an hour, I gained the ridge which had seemed but three minutes away,
and there sat down to a silent lesson in geography. I had given up
all hope of following the hogs or discovering my comrades. I knew
now what it means to search for a needle in a bottle of hay, but with
many prickles I had gathered some wisdom, and learnt that, whether I
decided to go forward or to retreat, I must survey the _macchia_
before attempting it again.
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