114 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



and scratched and scarred ; his beard was black and 

 long, his hair shaggy, and hunger was in his face ; the 

 whole man looked as if he had just escaped from the 

 den of a wolf, where he had been starved and in daily 

 expectation of being eaten. But it was his eyes it 

 was the wild staring fixedness of his eyes that kept 

 mine gazing on him. The bent eagle-nose, the high, 

 fleshless cheek-bones, added to their power. There 

 was no fierceness in them, nor were they greedy eyes; 

 but they were those of a man who had been snatched 

 from a horrible death, in whom the recollection was 

 not yet effaced nor was ever likely to be. They were 

 always wide open : the whole creature seemed vigi- 

 lant, and awaiting at every moment to have to wrestle 

 with fate. But this was observable in the eyes alone, 

 not in the other features ; for the nostril was not dis- 

 tended nor the lips clenched, as they must have been 

 to harmonize with the meaning that was in his eyes. 

 I thought I had seen the man before : when it sud- 

 denly occurred to me that it was the head of the 

 "Ugolino*" I was staring at. 



I entered into conversation with him, and he told 

 me that not long ago he had slipped on the ice and 

 slidden down a long way without being able to stop 

 himself. He was in expectation every moment of 

 going to the bottom of the abyss, where, even had he 

 not been dashed to pieces, he could never have got 

 out again, when his foot was caught and he went no 

 further. His pole and rifle flew down into the gulf. 



* The Ugolino of Sir Joshua Reynolds. 



