6 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



ridge of a precipice near the Ober See, to fetch a chamois 

 he had shot ; and how, had his foot slipped or his head 

 grown dizzy, he must have dropped perpendicularly 

 through the air into the lake far, far below him. And 

 to these tales of adventure I listened with as much 

 eagerness and curiosity as I had done, when a boy, to 

 tales of shipwreck and of sailor life ; and with the same 

 feeling too, — an ardent longing to share in such adven- 

 turous pastime. The other, more susceptible perhaps 

 than his companion to the glories around him, would 

 describe the scene that presented itself to his astonished 

 gaze, when, having gained the summit of the mountain, 

 the mists suddenly parting let in the golden light of the 

 rising sun, and showed huge rocks and precipices, and 

 green herbage, and high-up valleys all lying close before 

 him at his feet. There was genuine enthusiasm in all 

 these descriptions, and, like all genuine feeling, it did 

 not fail of its effect. I could no longer resist the desire 

 to move with rifle at my back amid such scenes ; to step 

 along those narrow ledges of rock, or creep up through 

 the steep ravines which htfd become almost like well- 

 known places to me, so much had I heard about them, 

 and so particular had been my questionings ; and at last 

 the wish I had cherished for years was realized, and I 

 stood upon the mountain-top and saw the chamois among 

 the rocks. 



Deer-stalking in the forest, with all its pleasures and 

 excitement, was but tame sport to this. I could now 

 well understand how with some it might become a passion 

 so strong and irresistible, that not even all the hazards 

 of a poacher's life prevented its gratification. The 

 magnificent scenery, the daring and the danger, the 

 vigour and elasticity of limb which the pure mountain 

 air imparted, the glorious sunrise overflooding gradually 



