CHAPTER THE LAST. 399 



there. I was particularly desirous to do so, not merely 

 on account of the abundance of game, but chiefly be- 

 cause the mountains are different in feature to those 

 where I had hitherto been. They are wilder and more 

 rugged*, and the difficult places far more frequent. 

 Narrow paths along a ledge overhanging a precipice 

 are sometimes not to be avoided : they must be passed 

 in order to proceed further. In more than one place 

 a wall of rock shuts out all advance : a path is im- 

 possible in such a spot, and yet if you could scale that 

 perpendicular face of the mountain, you would then 

 be able to pursue your way according to your plea- 

 sure. You have come so far, but further no living 

 thing, except a bird, can get unaided. Nor is there 

 any other spot where you may pass : this wall of rock 

 forms a break in your path of, it may be, a dozen 

 yards or so, and which but for this barrier would have 

 suffered no interruption. If you cannot surmount the 

 obstacle, you must retrace your steps for hours, and 

 climb up the other side of the mountain. But to pre- 

 vent the necessity of this, in such places bars of iron 

 have been driven into the rock and left projecting six- 

 teen or eighteen inches. They are placed slantingly 

 one above another, and by them, as on the steps of a 

 ladder, the hunter mounts up the steep face of the 

 rock. He must of course be careful that his rifle does 

 not swing against it, and that nothing happens which 



* Das steinene Meer ("The ocean of stone") is here, so called 

 from the jagged rocks that, rising up one behind the other, and ex- 

 tending on and on, look like the waves of a petrified sea. 



