5o6 Notes on Si)ort and Travel x 



they were realities or mere inuscce volitantcs, produced 

 by staring up into the clear bright sky with one's 

 head thrown back. This fellow there was no doubt 

 of ; we saw his very beard ! We were really then 

 chamois-hunting ; we had penetrated into the very 

 den of the mountain tyrant. No fear of gigs and 

 green parasols here ; we were above the world. 



Soon after our friend had departed, and we had 

 recovered from the astonishment into which his 

 unexpected visit had thrown us, we reached the end 

 of our mauvais pas, and found ourselves at the foot 

 of a wild valley, entirely shut in by ranges of lofty 

 cliffs, with patches of snow lying on the least inclined 

 spots. In front, still far above us, towered the wild 

 rock-masses of the Wildgrad Kogle. The Kogle 

 itself ran up into one sharp peak, that seemed, from 

 where we were, to terminate in a point. Great part 

 of its base was concealed by a range of precipices, 

 with broad sheets of snow here and there, resting at 

 an extraordinarily high angle, as we soon found to 

 our cost, and having their crests notched, and pillared, 

 and serrated in the wildest manner. The floor of 

 the valley was covered with masses of rock and 

 boulder hurled from the surrounding cliffs, and heaps 

 and sheets of rough gravel, ground and crushed by 

 the avalanches and fissured by the torrents of melted 

 snow. The silence of the Alp -spirit, as silent as 

 death itself, was in it ; only at intervals was heard 

 the whispering sough of some slip of snow, dislodged 

 by the warmth of the midday sun. 



