The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: chaparral, grew freely but sparsely all about it. In front,
in the strong sunshine, the platform lay overstrewn with busy
litter, as though the labours of the mine might begin again
to-morrow in the morning.
Following back into the canyon, among the mass of rotting
plant and through the flowering bushes, we came to a great
crazy staging, with a wry windless on the top; and clambering
up, we could look into an open shaft, leading edgeways down
into the bowels of the mountain, trickling with water, and
lit by some stray sun-gleams, whence I know not. In that
quiet place the still, far-away tinkle of the water-drops was
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