It did not appear, however, to be more than three hundred and fifty feet--a fearful height, it is true--but nothing when compared with other sections of the same precipice.

To reach to its top, more than a dozen ladders would be required--each between twenty and thirty feet in length.

The labour of making these ladders, with such tools as they had, might be looked upon as something stupendous--sufficient, you might suppose, to deter them from the task.

But you must endeavour to realise the situation in which they were placed--with no other hope of being delivered from their mountain prison--and with this idea in your mind, you will comprehend why they should have been willing to undertake even a far greater labour.

Of course, they did not expect to complete it in a day, neither in a week, nor in a month: for they well knew that it would take several months to make the number of ladders that would be required.