456 OLD ALPINE JOTTINGS. 



than those of an aqueous cloud. Indeed, water is 

 without a parallel in this particular. Its vapour is the 

 lightest of all vapours, and to this fact the soft and 

 tender beauty of the clouds of our atmosphere is 

 mainly due. 1 



After an hour's halt, our rope, of which we had 

 temporarily rid ourselves, was reproduced, and the de- 

 scent began. Jenni is the most daring man and 

 powerful character among the guides of Pontresina. 

 The manner in which he bears down all the others in 

 conversation, and imposes his own will upon them, 

 shows that he is the dictator of the place. He is a 

 large and rather an ugly man, and his progress up- 

 hill, though resistless, is slow. He had repeatedly 

 expressed a wish to make an excursion with me, and I 

 think he desired to show us what he could do upon 

 the mountains. To-day he accomplished two daring 

 things — the one successfully, while the other was within 

 a hair's-breadth of a very shocking end. 



In descending we went straight down upon a berg- 

 schrund, which compelled us to make a circuit in 

 coming up. This particular kind of fissure is formed 

 by the lower portion of a snow-slope falling away from 

 the higher, a crevasse being thus formed between the 

 two, which often surrounds the mountain as a fosse of 

 great depth. Walter was here the first of our party, and 

 Jenni was the last. It was quite evident that Walter 

 hesitated to cross the chasm ; but Jenni came forward, 

 and half by expostulation, half by command, caused 

 him to sit down on the snow at some height above the 

 fissure. I think, moreover, he helped him with a 



1 Since this was written Mr. Sinclair has greatly augmented our 

 knowledge of cloud-formation. By a series of striking experiments 

 he has shown the part played by solid nuclei in the act of precipi- 

 tation. 



