UP THE M1ESING. 65 



except on this projecting buttress -like shoulder, the 

 declivity was so steep as to be not many degrees from 

 the perpendicular. I proposed therefore that we should 

 choose this less steep ridge to reach the broken 

 rocks above us, on whose jagged forms we might ob- 

 tain a firm hold, and so creep upwards to the very 

 crest of the mountain. " Oh no," answered Berger ; 

 "we dare not venture that: they would be sure to 

 see us, for we should be quite unsheltered, and our 

 bodies being thrown against the sky would be dis- 

 tinctly visible. No, we must try yonder up that 

 la/me*," pointing to the steep declivity before us, to 

 see the summit of which it was necessary to fling 

 the head quite backwards. I confess it was not with 

 the pleasantest feelings that I saw what we had un- 

 dertaken ; for the slope was covered with snow, making 

 the ascent doubly difficult, and upwards of two 

 thousand feet below was a huge rocky chasm, into 

 which I could look and calculate where I might at 

 last stop, if my foot slipped and I happened to go 

 sliding down. Where the lahne ended beds of loose 

 stones began ; and, as if to remind one of their in- 

 stability, and how hopeless it would be to think of 



* Lahnen are smooth steep declivities covered with long grass. 

 In the summer, when this rank herbage has been dried by the sun 

 and air, it is so slippery that a firm footing is almost impossible ; and 

 in winter such an ascent is not made more practicable by its covering 

 of snow. When slipping on such a lahne you shoot downwards as 

 on one of those artificial mountains or slides which form a favourite 

 amusement in Russia. They not unfrequently rise above a preci- 

 pice ; a false step here, therefore, and a miracle only can save you 

 from going over into the abyss. 



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