290 TRAVELS IN THE EIGHTIES. 



of the animal's habitat at this season of the year. A 

 place more inaccessible by nature could scarcely be 

 imagined. Let there be conceived, then, an enor- 

 mous ravine sloping upwards from the sea at an angle 

 of 50 from the vertical, up to a height of 7,000 

 ft., with precipitous sides, comparatively narrow and 

 thickly overgrown in parts. Half-way up from the 

 bottom it widens out like the half of a huge funnel, 

 seamed with little watercourses, down which the 

 water is partly slipping, partly falling, so steep is 

 the angle of inclination, and so smooth their beds. 

 Wherever vegetation can find root, it grows, until 

 swept away by falling rocks and avalanches. The 

 northern portion of this appallingly impossible ravine 

 was as steep and perpendicular as any precipice one 

 could imagine which does not actually overhang its 

 own base. I believe that if a stone were dislodged 

 from the ridge along the top it would fall 5,000 ft. 

 without touching more than twice or thrice. Here 

 and there this cliff is veined with narrow ledges, 

 piled with stones, on which grass grows, and on one 

 or two broader strips, or variations from the perpen- 

 dicular, stand clusters of small firs, and plants on 

 which these wild goats browse. Steep, indeed, must 

 the ground be where these pines can find no roothold. 

 On this awful spot 



Like that dim gulf 

 Where sense and being swoon 

 When the soul parts 



where no human foot may ever tread, whence a 



