44 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



there before is now to be recognized. You turn round, 

 and ask yourself if in coming downwards yonder peak 

 with snow was not on your right, and you are not sure 

 of the answer, for there is another very like it where 

 snow is also lying : — how then distinguish between 

 them ? And if you determine to go straight on toward 

 the distant ridge, on getting there at last after two 

 hours' desperate climbing, all again is like an unknown 

 land, and not a single mountain-top that forms part of 

 the new horizon have you ever beheld before. Land- 

 mark you have none — the few you had are now irre- 

 coverably lost. There you stand in vast space, utterly 

 helpless. Far, far around you rise those sharp lines 

 against the sky which bounds your present world. How 

 gladly would you look into the space beyond, and strive 

 to catch at hope ! But this " beyond" is shut out from 

 you as impenetrably as that vague unknown which is 

 beyond the grave. And you still keep your look fixed 

 on those impassable barriers : a strange irresistible power 

 seems to rivet your staring eyes upon them, and you gaze 

 on with awe, and dread, and longing ! 



Ay, with awe ! for they stand before you, those huge 

 forms, in overpowering, unparticipating stillness. All 

 is motionless. Nothing stirs that forms a part of them. 

 A shadow may flit across their face, but that is an ex- 

 traneous thing, and when it has swept by, there they 

 are, still in the same cold, rigid imperturbability. If 

 only a tree were there, with its softer outline, and its 

 boughs, though not moving, at least conveying the feel- 

 ing that they might move as being a thing with life ! 

 But no, the hard lines of those fixed features are unre- 

 lieved by one milder form ; stillness, unwaning stillness, 

 sits on them everlastingly, like Death ! And yet you 

 gaze on them with longing, — the longing that with your 



