68 STALKS ABROAD 



meaning of that deep-throated chant which came 

 back to me over the years: 



" Before the hills in order stood, or earth received her frame." 



I wondered what unnumbered centuries had gone to 

 the ordering of the scene which lay before me. 



Oblivious to my thoughts, Henry had left me, and 

 I saw his tracks stringing up the narrow gorge at 

 whose far end I had left the ram the night before. 

 Following him, it came across me that even if I had 

 seen no ram I had done well to climb among those 

 everlasting hills, to wonder at their beauty and the 

 grateful rest they held. 



So, the falling timber and interlacing scrub which 

 covered the frozen burn left thankfully behind us, 

 we came to the spot where my dead ram lay. 



Then our climb began. From where we stood the 

 great white side of Yarlakan towered seven or eight 

 thousand feet straight above us. Slides of splintered 

 shale showed grey and menacing at one point, where 

 the sun had robbed them of their covering ; at another 

 dark fissure-ribbed lines of rock protruded, and came 

 crawling down the hillside, swollen at first, to taper 

 gradually into the vertebrae of some forgotten monster. 

 Little patches of fallen pines and scrub lay thick 

 about the bottom of the gorge, to spread and scatter 

 as the ground above them grew more bleak. With 

 stunted outposts they held their own as far as timber 

 line; beyond, cold unbroken sameness dazzled one 

 with its chilly glare. Higher and yet higher we 



