THE PRINCE MEDITATES HIS ESCAPE
He now found that it would be very difficult to effect that which it was
very easy to suppose effected. When he looked round about him, he saw
himself confined by the bars of nature, which had never yet been broken,
and by the gate, through which none that once had passed it were ever
able to return. He was now impatient as an eagle in a grate. He passed
week after week in clambering the mountains, to see if there was any
aperture which the bushes might conceal, but found all the summits
inaccessible by their prominence. The iron gate he despaired to open;
for it was not only secured with all the power of art, but was always
watched by successive sentinels, and was by its position exposed to the
perpetual observation of all the inhabitants.
He then examined the cavern through which the waters of the lake were
discharged; and, looking down at a time when the sun shone strongly upon
its mouth, he discovered it to be full of broken rocks, which, though
they permitted the stream to flow through many narrow passages, would
stop any body of solid bulk. He returned discouraged and dejected; but
having now known the blessing of hope, resolved never to despair.
In these fruitless searches he spent ten months. The time, however,
passed cheerfully away: in the morning he rose with new hope, in the
evening applauded his own diligence, and in the night slept sound after
his fatigue. He met a thousand amusements which beguiled his labour and
diversified his thoughts. He discerned the various instincts of animals
and properties of plants, and found the place replete with wonders, of
which he purposed to solace himself with the contemplation, if he should
never be able to accomplish his flight; rejoicing that his endeavours,
though yet unsuccessful, had supplied him with a source of inexhaustible
inquiry.
But his original curiosity was not yet abated; he resolved to obtain
some knowledge of the ways of men. His wish still continued, but his
hope grew less. He ceased to survey any longer the walls of his prison,
and spared to search by new toils for interstices which he knew could
not be found, yet determined to keep his design always in view, and lay
hold on any expedient that time should offer.