X Chaniois'H tinting 5 3 1 



only makes one the more thirsty. Let us be off out 

 of ear-shot of it, at any rate. Take up the gemse, 

 and let us dream of cool, bubbling runlets and iced 

 sour milk as we go. 



Dream, quotha! \vc must dream of how we are to 

 go at all, first, and a very nightmarey sort of dream 

 it promises to be ; we are regularly pounded ; not a 

 vestige of a crack or crevice up which to worm our- 

 selves in the whole face of the semicircular range of 

 cliffs beneath which we stand ; and, moreover, they 

 are all of that upside-down, overhanging style that 

 precludes all climbing. We must retrace our steps 

 as we best can and try where we descended. 



Well, Joseph, where did we come down, eh ? 

 Not there? Nonsense — impossible! Yes, too 

 true, there it was; there are our tracks in the snow, 

 and the dust and stones that were so obliging as 

 to accompany us to the bottom, and be hanged to 

 them ! But the cliff has surely grown since then. 

 It looks as high as Gallantry Bower in dear old 

 North Devon ; I wish I were at the top or bottom 

 either of tJiat, instead of where I am. There is not 

 a hundred feet difference between them. Three 

 hundred feet the cliff is if an inch ; we can never 

 do it. Let us make a cast round by the screes, and 

 see if we cannot get down that way. 



We did so, but found that they were quite im- 

 passable. What looked like a continuous shoot 

 when seen from below, we found to be divided by 

 two or three ledges of rock ; and the angle at which 



