62 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



" Yes, they are still there ! Now then, we must get 

 to the pinnacle right over our heads, and then along the 

 ridge, and so have a shot at them from above." 



The shoulder of the mountain where we stood was 

 steep enough certainly, but it still presented sufficient in- 

 equalities to enable us to clamber up it. Elsewhere, 

 except on this projecting buttress-like shoulder, the 

 declivity was so steep as to be not many degrees from 

 the perpendicular. I proposed therefore that we should 

 choose this less steep ridge to reach the broken rocks above 

 us, on whose jagged forms we might obtain a firm hold, 

 and so creep upwards to the very crest of the mountain. 

 " Oh no," answered Berger ; " we dare not venture 

 that : they would be sure to see us, for we should be quite 

 unsheltered, and our bodies being thrown against the 

 sky would be distinctly visible. No, we must try yonder 

 — up that lahne,"* pointing to the steep declivity before 

 us, to see the summit of which it was necessary to fling 

 the head quite backwards. I confess it was not with the 

 pleasantest feelings that I saw what we had undertaken ; 

 for the slope was covered with snow, making the ascent 

 doubly difficult, and upwards of two thousand feet below 

 was a huge rocky chasm, into which I could look and 

 calculate where I might at last stop, if my foot slipped 

 and I happened to go sliding down. Where the lahne 

 ended beds of loose stones began ; and, as if to remind 



* Lahnen are smooth, steep declivities covered with long grass. In 

 the summer, when this rank herbage has been dried by the sun and air, 

 it is so slippery that a firm footing is almost impossible ; and in winter 

 such an ascent is not made more practicable by its covering of snow. 

 When slipping on such a lahne you shoot downwards as on one of those 

 artificial mountains or slides which form a favourite amusement in 

 Russia. They not unfrequently rise above a precipice ; a false step here, 

 therefore, and a miracle only can save you from going over into the 

 abyss. 



