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 had once 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 researches 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 soundly 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 proposed 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.