The Hobbit

sneezes. Very soon there was a fine commotion in the village by the riverside; but Bilbo escaped into the woods carrying a
     loaf and a leather bottle of wine and a pie that did not belong to him. The rest of the night he had to pass wet as he was
     and far from a fire, but the bottle helped him to do that, and he actually dozed a little on some dry leaves, even though
     the year was getting late and the air was chilly.
    He woke again with a specially loud sneeze. It was already grey morning, and there was a merry racket down by the river. They
     were making up a raft of barrels, and the raft-elves would soon be steering it off down the stream to Lake-town. Bilbo sneezed
     again. He was no longer dripping but he felt cold all over. He scrambled down as fast as his stiff legs would take him and
     managed just in time to get on to the mass of casks without being noticed in the general bustle. Luckily there was no sun at the time to cast an awkward shadow, and for a mercy he did not sneeze again for
     a good while.
    There was a mighty pushing of poles. The elves that were standing in the shallow water heaved and shoved. The barrels now
     all lashed together creaked and fretted.
    “This is a heavy load!” some grumbled. “They float too deep—some of these are never empty. If they had come ashore in the
     daylight, we might have had a look inside,” they said.
    “No time now!” cried the raftman. “Shove off!” And off they went at last, slowly at first, until they had passed the point
     of rock where other elves stood to fend them off with poles, and then quicker and quicker as they caught the main stream and
     went sailing away down, down towards the Lake.
    They had escaped the dungeons of the king and were through the wood, but whether alive or dead still remains to be seen.

Chapter
X
A WARM WELCOME
    The day grew lighter and warmer as they floated along. After a while the river rounded a steep shoulder of land that came
     down upon their left. Under its rocky feet like an inland cliff the deepest stream had flowed lapping and bubbling. Suddenly
     the cliff fell away. The shores sank. The trees ended. Then Bilbo saw a sight:
    The lands opened wide about him, filled with the waters of the river which broke up and wandered in a hundred winding courses,
     or halted in marshes and pools dotted with isles on every side; but still a strong water flowed on steadily through the midst.
     And far away, its dark head in a torn cloud, there loomed the Mountain! Its nearest neighbours to the North-East and the tumbled
     land that joined it to them could not be seen. All alone it rose and looked across the marshes to the forest. The Lonely Mountain!
     Bilbo had come far and through many adventures to see it, and now he did not like the look of it in the least.
    As he listened to the talk of the raftmen and pieced together the scraps of information they let fall, he soon realized that
     he was very fortunate ever to have seen it at all, even from this distance. Dreary as had been his imprisonment and unpleasant
     as was his position (to say nothing of the poor dwarves underneath him) still, he had been more lucky than he had guessed. The talk was all of the trade that came and went on the
     waterways and the growth of the traffic on the river, as the roads out of the East towards Mirkwood vanished or fell into
     disuse; and of the bickerings of the Lake-men and the Wood-elves about the upkeep of the Forest River and the care of the
     banks. Those lands had changed much since the days when dwarves dwelt in the Mountain, days which most people now remembered
     only as a very shadowy tradition. They had changed even in recent years, and since the last news that Gandalf had had of them.
     Great floods and rains had swollen the waters that flowed east; and there had been an earthquake or two (which some were inclined
     to attribute to the dragon—alluding to him chiefly with a curse and an ominous nod in the direction of the Mountain). The
     marshes and bogs had spread wider and wider on either side. Paths had vanished, and many a rider and wanderer too, if they
     had tried to find the lost ways across. The elf-road through the wood which the dwarves had followed on the advice of Beorn
     now came to a doubtful and little used end at the eastern edge of the forest; only the river offered any longer a safe way
     from the skirts of Mirkwood in the North to the mountain-shadowed plains beyond, and the river was guarded by the