The road is winding, and consists of a succession of short, steep descents, diversified by occasional sloughs, which might well be called "sloughs of despond," into one of which Manuel was thrown rather unceremoniously, by the bursting of his saddle-girths at the top of one of these short hills, by which means he took a flight over the head of his beast, and found a soft resting place in the mud at the bottom.