462 MOUNTAIN SPORTING TRIPS. 



by the aid of a good glass, in order to ascertain whether 

 game is feeding or lying down anywhere upon the 

 adjacent slopes. There is no object in hurrying over 

 the ground, for the hunter who does so is pretty sure 

 to be observed by the sharp eyes of game, long before 

 he detects their presence. His success therefore in 

 such case is likely to be small. All this leaves plenty 

 of opportunity to admire the scenery, and every now 

 and again vistas between the hills will open out distant 

 prospects of miles of leafy forests, or of dark and 

 apparently fathomless valleys, far beneath, or else 

 perhaps of sunlit plains spreading forth in the lowlands 

 somewhat veiled in mist, like the blue expanse of some 

 vast and silent ocean; for from these great elevations 

 and at these great distances, irregularities of surface 

 become merged into one apparently level expanse 

 which to all intents and purposes exactly resembles a 

 distant sea. And if in the course of his wanderings 

 upon the mountains the visitor fails to see much that 

 is worthy of his highest admiration, and comes away 

 from them without carrying away with him a lasting 

 recollection of the grandeur and beauty of the mighty 

 panorama that is spread out before him, why the fault 

 Avill be his own, and not that of the object lesson 

 which Nature has exhibited to his gaze. 



