This was for him a great trial.
He thought of making, with reeds and the fibres of the aloe, a net to catch birds; but all patient occupation, all continuous labor, had become insupportable to him.
That he might escape the gloomy ideas which assailed him more and more, it became necessary to avoid repose, to court bodily fatigue.
By continual exercise, his powers of locomotion had developed in incredible proportions.

His feet had become so hardened that he no longer felt the briers or sharp stones.

When he grew weary, he slept, in whatever place he found himself, and these were his only quiet hours.
To chase the agoutis had ceased to be an object worthy of his efforts; the kids took their turn, afterwards the goats.

He had acquired such dexterity of movement, and such strength of muscle, such certainty of eye, that to leap from one projection of rock to another, to spring at one bound over ravines and deep cavities, was to him but a childish sport.

In these feats he took pleasure and pride.
Sometimes, in the midst of his flights through space, he would seize a bird on the wing.
The goats themselves soon lost their power to struggle against such a combatant.