A PRECARIOUS POSITION. 



We had recrossed the torrent on our way back, and had 

 reached a narrow and almost perpendicular cleft between a 

 smooth wall of rock and a hard bank of old snow : a very 

 awkward place, which, from being scarcely wider than a 

 man's body, it required considerable exertion both of arms 

 and legs to ascend. Puddoo went first, and reached the top. 

 I followed next, and had elbowed myself half-way up, when, 

 in endeavouring to clutch at a niche above me, I in some 

 manner wrenched my weak shoulder, and instantly felt I 

 had dislocated it. Calling out for assistance, I fortunately 

 managed to support myself with the one arm and my knees 

 until Ganna reached me from below, and Puddoo, who had 

 divested himself of his shoes, had climbed down from above 

 to extricate me from my unpleasant and somewhat critical 

 position. On reaching a spot where there was space enough 

 to lie down, with Puddoo's assistance the joint was soon re* 

 placed for, since my first accident of a similar nature on 

 the Pir Punchal, the experience of several repetitions of it 

 had taught me how to act in such an emergency, and con* 

 sequently I thought little of it. My companions gravely 

 shook their heads, and I overheard them making sundry 

 mysterious allusions to the evil reputation of the glen. A 

 wild and eerie-looking spot this certainly was, with its 

 frowning precipices, beetling crags, and tall black pines. 

 As the shades of night closed down on our gloomy sur- 

 roundings, the big owls began their dismal hootings from 

 the dark echoing pine-wood across the torrent, as if derid- 

 ing our futile attempt on the charmed life of that black 

 old tahr. 



During the night I was suddenly startled from a restless 

 and rather feverish sleep the natural consequence of my 

 little mishap by the sound of an avalanche of rocks and 

 stones that caine rattling down a steep gully some twenty 

 yards from where I lay. This was followed by the occa- 

 sional fall of a loose pebble on the canvas of my tent, 

 suggesting to my disturbed imagination the idea of impend- 



