NON SINE FISTULA. 245 



ing to the taste. A pipe can soothe the spirit 

 impatient of delay ; and speculations as to the future 

 or reminiscences of the past may wile away the time 

 even pleasantly. On this occasion my attendant 

 related, for my amusement, several anecdotes drawn 

 from the hoard of his past experiences. One of them 

 I will give to my readers. 



In front of the position in which we lay, and just 

 across the deep glen lying beneath us, rose a large 

 lumpy tract of high land, extending some miles north 

 and south ; beyond which again, and on the other side 

 of a second glen running parallel with the former, 

 there towered up a congregation of very rugged and 

 precipitous mountain masses, attaining to a consider- 

 able elevation and entirely destitute of vegetation. 

 There the eagle had his eyrie, and the fox his den, 

 both equally secure from human intrusion. The fox- 

 hunter had once, in the heat of the chase, been tempted 

 to follow his hounds into this desolate and dangerous 

 region ; at a time too when it was more than usually 

 dangerous, being covered with a thick coating of snow. 



Thoughtless of the perils about him, he surmounted 

 one difficulty after another, until at length the clamour- 

 ing pack brought him to a ridge of frozen snow, so 

 narrow at its upper edge, that he could only advance 

 by sitting astride of it and pushing himself forward 

 with the united leverage of hands and feet. In this 

 way, however, he succeeded ia making the passage. 

 But not long afterwards his dogs lost all trace of their 

 fox, and baffled and wearied, he gave up the chase. 

 Retracing his steps, he was soon once more at the 

 ridge of snow, and now first became aware of the 

 perilous nature of the path he had chosen. On one 

 side the drift reached down to the edge of a presipice, 

 more than a thousand feet in perpendicular height ; 



