5o8 Notes on Sport and Travel x 



Having finished our botanical investigations, we 

 pushed on to the upper end of the valley, and found 

 that the cliffs and screes and snow -patches looked 

 uglier and steeper the nearer we approached them. 

 However, there was no retreat ; onwards we must 

 go, or be declared ' nidding ' through the length and 

 breadth of the Tyrol. 



Oh, those screes, those screes ! lying at an angle 

 of goodness knows how much with the horizon, — 

 sharp, slaty, angular pieces of stone, like savage 

 hatchets, slippery as glass, glancing from under our 

 feet, and casting us down sideways on their abomin- 

 able edges, ' sliddering ' down by the ton, carrying 

 our unfortunate persons yards below where we wanted 

 to go, crashing and clattering, and then dancing and 

 bounding far down into the valley, like mischievous 

 gnomes delighted with the bumpings and bruisings 

 they had treated us to ! How Joseph did anathe- 

 matise ! For my part, mine was a grief ' too deep 

 for swears ' ! 



After crossing, still ascending, two or three beds 

 of screes, we came to the edge of the first snow-field, 

 — not very broad, it is true, but lying at a higher angle 

 than I ever thought possible, and frozen as hard as 

 marble on the surface ; one sheet of ice, with an 

 agreeable fall of some hundred feet at its lower edge. 

 We were in despair ! We had now got excited and 

 confident ; our blood was up, and here came * the 

 impossible ' to stop us ! 



But what is it that Joseph has picked up from 



