In Ghostly Japan

...a coldness sharp as a sword. And the horror of the overwhelming original: "stupendous"; here meaning causing amazement or terror due to immense size. height, the nightmare of the overwhelming depth, and the terror of the silence grew and grew. It weighed upon the pilgrim and held his feet in place—so that suddenly all his strength left him, and he moaned like someone caught in a nightmare.

“Hurry, hurry, my son!” cried the Bodhisattva A being who has attained enlightenment but delays entering Nirvana to help others.: “the day is short, and the summit is very far away.”

But the pilgrim shrieked:

“I am afraid! I fear unspeakably!—and my strength has left me!”

“Your strength will return, my son,” the Bodhisattva answered. . . . “Look now below you, above you, and around you, and tell me what you see.”

“I cannot,” cried the pilgrim, trembling and clinging to the slope; “I dare not look down! Before me and around me there is nothing but the skulls of men.”

“And yet, my son,” said the Bodhisattva, laughing softly, “you still do not know what this mountain is made of.”

The other, shuddering, repeated:

“I am afraid!—I am unutterably afraid! . . . there is nothing here but the skulls of men!”