g6 Sport and Life. 



Notwithstanding all these difficulties that hamper travelling, 

 these upland forests, where not swept by fire or avalanches, are 

 very beautiful, and they grow more so the further north-west you 

 penetrate. The trunks, as you approach timber-line, are clothed 

 with the fantastic " beard of the Alps," pendant tresses of grizzly 

 moss, often more than a yard in length, hanging in festoons from 

 the gnarled branches of the larger pines. When fierce gales sweep 

 through these elevated forests, these tresses wave to and fro in a 

 weirdly fantastic manner. The flora, too, is more varied than on 

 the eastern ranges ; the beautiful, inimitable blue of the Alpine 

 gentians, sunk in their mossy cushions, the delicate perfume of the 

 wood orchids, and the trailing creepers of the clematis, all remind 

 one of the Alpine uplands of the Old World. On approaching 

 timber-line, where the dense forest scatters out, patches of snow, 

 the last shreds of the deep, solemn pall that had covered living 

 nature for the past seven months, begin to show in the gullies and 

 ravines. 



Towards evening of the fourth day we at last stood on the 

 breezy slopes of the great chain, some Soooft. or goooft. over the 

 broiling Atlantic and Pacific coasts. One or two avalanches, where 

 the snow was still piled up 3oft. high, had to be crossed before we 

 reached a small rock-embowered lake, where further progress with 

 the pack-train became impossible. It was a lovely sheet of water, 

 the further side enclosed by huge walls of rock that rose sheer from 

 the water's edge to an altitude of many hundred feet. Thrice 

 beautiful it appeared that day to the parched men and animals of 

 our party, and it needed not the order to camp to strew an inviting 

 bit of smooth emerald green meadow, lapped by the water of the 

 lake, with the loads of the horses. The next minute the jaded 

 animals were rolling on the refreshingly cool turf, and the " bosses " 

 were throwing aside their scant garments to dive from a great 

 protruding boulder into the limpid depth of the lake. 



But where are the goats, the reader will exclaim. They 

 are nearer than we think, for presently there is a hushed cry 

 of amazement, and all eyes are turned to the top of the great walls 



