Minnie in particular gave utterance to her delight: and now, having lost every particle of fear, she begged to be allowed to drive in the foremost sled.

Ethel had been in it thus far, but she willingly changed places with Minnie, and thus the descent was made.
The sleds and their occupants were now arranged in the following order: First, Minnie Fay alone with the driver.
Second, Mrs.Willoughby and Ethel.
Third, the Dowager and her maid.
Fourth, the three other maids.
Fifth, the luggage.
After these five sleds, containing our party, came another with the foreign gentleman.
Each of these sleds had a driver to itself.
In this order the party went, until at length they came to the Gorge of Gondo.

This is a narrow valley, the sides of which rise up very abruptly, and in some places precipitously, to a great height.

At the bottom flows a furious torrent, which boils and foams and roars as it forces its impetuous way onward over fallen masses of rock and trees and boulders, at one time gathering into still pools, at other times roaring into cataracts.

Their road had been cut out on the side of the mountain, and the path had been cleared away here many feet above the buried road; and as they wound along the slope they could look up at the stupendous heights above them, and down at the abyss beneath them, whose white snow-covering was marked at the bottom by the black line of the roaring torrent.