On drawing nearer to these curious objects, you discover them to be ladders--the lowest set upon the earth, and reaching to a ledge, upon which the second is rested; this one extending to a second ledge, on which the third ladder finds support; and so on throughout a whole series of six.
At first sight, it would appear to you as if the _ci-devant_ denizens of the hut had made their exodus from the valley by means of these ladders; and such would be the natural conviction, but for a circumstance that forbids belief in this mode of exit: _the ladders do not continue to the top of the cliff_! A long space, which would require two or three more such ladders to span it, still intervenes between the top of the highest and the brow of the precipice; and this could not have been scaled without additional ladders.

Where are they?
It is scarcely probable they had been drawn up; and had they fallen back into the valley, they would still be there.

There are none upon the ground.
But these conjectures do not require to be continued.

A short examination of the cliff suffices to convince you that the design of scaling it by ladders could not have succeeded.

The ledge against which rests the top of the highest must have been found too narrow to support another; or rather, the rocks above and projecting over would render it impossible to place a ladder upon this ledge.