204 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



on, so thickly are their creeping stems interwoven ; and 

 if you place your foot on their branches, it slides down, 

 and they spring up with a jerk, knocking you probably 

 off your balance. But it is not your body only you must 

 contrive to wind through them ; the long pole in your 

 hand and the rifle at your back must also accompany 

 you, and every twig then seems a hand and fingers 

 grasping and pulling them back. But when your work 

 is to be done quietly, you groan inwardly at every step 

 you take. Indeed the caution which, in this respect, it 

 is necessary to observe, adds immeasurably to your diffi- 

 culty. If you dared trample across the loose debris at 

 will, you would find the passage much easier ; and if you 

 were not obliged to bend yourself into deformity, to 

 achieve some yards of open space over which you dare, 

 on no account whatever, look like the biped that you 

 are, you would cover the ground in half the time, and 

 every muscle would ache much less. 



In going home that evening a beautiful appearance 

 presented itself. The valley in front of us, where Baier- 

 isch Zell lay, was filled with a mystic radiance, and no 

 one saw whence it came. For it did not hover over one 

 part only, as shed by a foreign influence, but it was in 

 the air, and emanated from it ; it was the very air itself, 

 which by some wonderful transfusion had become softened 

 light. But as everywhere else it was dark, whence came 

 the halo-like brightness that filled all the vale ? It was 

 as though angels had descended there, leaving behind 

 them those faint traces of their glory long after they 

 were gone. 



It was only the moon. Though she had not yet risen 

 on us, from the other side of the mountain she was shin- 

 ing on the valley through a dip in the hills. Presently 

 however, high, high up to our right, a white brilliancy was 



