UP AMONG THE CLOUDS. 401 



naked feet and toes as prehensile as a monkey's, and for 

 Puddoo, who could without inconvenience go barefooted 

 when he chose ; but, for myself with my boots, had I known 

 what I was being let in for, I think that, considering all 

 things, my weak shoulder included, I should have chosen the 

 longer route. We continued our steep ascent until we reached 

 what appeared, through the clouds that enveloped our more 

 distant surroundings,* to be a ridge of huge rugged rocks, 

 from whence a dark narrow chasm descended abruptly into 

 infinite misty space below. Black wall-like crags rose on 

 both sides of a narrow strip of hard snow, shooting downward 

 at an angle of something less than 45 degrees. Down this 

 gloomy forbidding-looking abyss our way now led. We 

 commenced the descent by lowering ourselves over an almost 

 perpendicular face of rock for some twenty feet on to the 

 sloping slippery snow-bed, down which we went slowly and 

 carefully, having often to notch the hard snow for foothold. 

 Thus we proceeded over alternate snow and bare rock, with 

 the same clouded emptiness still below us, until we must 

 have descended at least 1000 feet, when the monotony of 

 our precarious and seemingly endless undertaking was varied 

 by a musk-deer starting up close to us. As he stood to look 

 back within twenty-five paces, his dim shadowy form looming 

 large and spectre-like through the mist, I got hold of the 

 rifle from Puddoo, who was carrying it, and rolled him over ; 

 but as he contrived to struggle away for a short distance 

 down the rocks, we had some trouble in securing him. This 

 caused considerable delay ; consequently, by the time Ganna 

 had shouldered him, the already waning light had almost 

 failed us. Down and still down we scrambled through the 

 murky mist, until at length it grew so dark as to make it 

 next thing to impossible to move a step without danger of 

 missing our footing. Matters were now getting rather serious, 

 for our guide, in reply to my repeated and anxious inquiries 

 as to how far we had yet to descend, had rather unwillingly 



2c 



