The villagers regarded us with barely-concealed hostility, but we were armed and numerous and they did not dare to attack us. We explained that we were only passing through, that we needed to cross the river, and the more they assisted us in this, the sooner they would be rid of us. After some muttering, they appeared to see the sense of this.
The river was very wide, with an island formed around an enormous rock in the middle. On the west side, where we were, the water was shallow enough for us to wade through, but eastward the stream was deep and fast-flowing. The villagers, with evident reluctance, supplied us with boats, and after several journeys our entire party was transferred safely to the eastern bank. We thanked the villagers for their help: we had no presents to give them, but for them our departure was clearly sufficient reward.
But this was only the start of our difficulties, for ahead of us loomed a far sterner task: the passage of the mountains. Those of us who had earlier gone on ahead knew with grim foreboding what to expect: crawling in the darkness through passages too narrow to turn round, and the dreadful door which was to be found at one of the corners. What lay behind it? none of us knew.
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