chap, vi LOW SOUND 



95 



tolerably dry. I was less lucky or less skilful, though I 

 always probed for footing with my axe, and generally found 

 it not more than knee-deep in the snow-slush, which for 

 wetness is no drier than mere water. At last I came to 

 what was obviously a big. snow-bog or slush-pool. Creep- 

 ing gingerly to the edge, I bent forwards and probed its 

 depth, expecting to find bottom not more than two feet 

 down. But the axe went in and in, up to, then over its 

 head. I could not withdraw it or myself. I perceived, in 

 a flash of recognition, that I was bound to follow it. To 

 avoid taking a header into the slush, in which it would 

 perhaps have been difficult to bring oneself afterwards right 

 way up — a truly ignominious fashion of drowning — I jumped 

 in, managing to turn partly round and get one hand on 

 the bank, thereby avoiding immersion above the neck, though 

 the bottom was out of my depth. To climb out again was 

 the work of a moment. Had I been less wet before this 

 adventure it would have been more disagreeable. As it was, 

 the incident passed with little comment. A brief interval of 

 sunshine that followed seemed blissful by contrast. 



Moraines and ice-foot passed, we plodded along the 

 edge of the bog-slope that intervenes in all these valleys 

 between the foot of the mountains and the gully or canon 

 of the river. The going, bad at ail times, became worse 

 every fifty yards or so, when a side-stream had to be crossed, 

 for each side-stream ran down a gully of its own, filled 

 with snow-bog that had to be tediously waded through. 

 About one A.M. (28th) we halted during a fine interval to 

 wring out pattis and stockings and empty the water from 

 our boots. Garwood unsuccessfully tried to sleep. We 

 were both dog tired, not with the length but with the toil- 

 someness of the way. Dreary Valley was very tame, with 

 its long brown monotonous slopes on either hand, striped 

 with snow-filled gullies, leading up eastward to a series of 



