In chapter three, they did not sing or tell stories that day, even though the weather improved; nor the next day, nor the day after. One morning they forded the river at a wide shallow place full of noise of stones and foam. The far bank was steep and slippery. When they got to the top of it they saw that the great mountains had marched down near to them. Already they seemed only a day’s easy journey from from the feet of the nearest. “Is that the mountain?” asked Bilbo in a solemn voice, looking at it with round eyes. He had never seen a thing that big before. “Of course not!” said Balin. “That is only the beginning of the misty mountains, and we have got to go through, or over, or under those somehow, before we can come into Wilderland
