58 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



yet you must advance quickly, and pick your way quite 

 noiselessly* I always found the exertion and attention 

 this required fatigued me more than climbing for a longer 

 time when such caution was unnecessary. 



As nothing more* was to be seen of the five chamois 

 we had met with on the Steinberg, we sat down and 

 peered into the vast hollow that lay before us. Rising 

 upwards to our left was barren rock, sharp and broken, 

 grey, bare, and weather-beaten : it looked hoary with 

 age. 



Where the rocks ceased to be perpendicular the geroll 

 began, and continued far downwards, till here and there 

 latschen began to show themselves. We sat in silence, 

 examining with strained eyes every inch of ground, and 

 looking down among the stunted bushes, and upwards 

 among the crags, in hopes of seeing a chamois that 

 might be lured forth by the cheering sun. From time 

 to time, as one of us fancied that some spot at a distance 

 looked like the object of his search, suddenly out flew 

 the glass, and the other, full of hope and expectation, 

 with eyes turned from the mountain-side to his com- 

 rade's face, would watch his- countenance as he looked 

 through the telescope, to learn, before he spoke, if a 

 chamois were there or not. He needed not to say, " ; Tis 

 nothing!" — the other saw this at once, by his expression. 

 But when the glass remained up to the eye some seconds 

 longer than usual, and the Jager, as he still looked, said, 

 "'Tis chamois ! there are three together \" how exciting 

 was the expectation. The glass of each would then in- 



* Geroll. Loose rolling stones on the side of a mountain, like the lava 

 on the sides of a volcano. At every step the whole mass gives way 

 beneath your tread, and slides downwards, carrying you with it. The 

 difficulty therefore in crossing such Geroll without noise may be con- 

 ceived. 



