MIST ON THE MOUNTAIN. 283 



furnished the meal. I relished it much, for I was very 

 hungry. Before us rose the Bishop, a mountain of grey 

 rock, on this side almost entirely covered with snow. 



"Was that a good place for chamois formerly?" I 

 asked. 



"No, never," replied Neuner; "but further down 

 was one of their favourite haunts. Yonder runs the 

 boundary-line which divides the chase belonging to the 

 Eschenlohe peasants from that of the King. They come 

 across, and leave the game no rest : you may hear shots 

 cracking, all the year round ; in season or out of season, 

 it is quite the same to them. Here we shoot the does 

 too, because if we did not, they would ; so, you see, we 

 are ourselves obliged to clear these mountains of the 

 game ; indeed all along the boundary we are forced to 

 destroy it." 



On such a day as this it is impossible to calculate with 

 any certainty upon a favourable change in the weather. 

 The appearances around vary from one moment to an- 

 other. Suddenly the mists come trailing by, and bits 

 of floating cloud, smoke-like and vapoury ; and in a se- 

 cond all is shut out from your sight. A damp, cold, 

 dull clogginess, like thickened air, hangs before your 

 face ; you feel it sticking to you ; and to see your com- 

 rade beyond two paces' distance is impossible. Even 

 then he looms towering through the fog, an indistinct 

 spectral shape. Every landmark has disappeared ; there 

 is not one single thing for the eye to seize and hold by, 

 and this soon produces a disquieting sensation. All sta- 

 bility seems gone, and your nature is not used to this. 

 Then you discover that the eye, as well as the footstep, 

 needs firm ground to move over ; it must have something 

 to lay hold of, and it peers around with a straining inten- 

 sity into the sluggish, thick vacuity, but finds nothing. 



