THE TYROL. SCHARNITZ. 389 



lar : the only places for tlie foot to rest on were the nar- 

 row prominences here and there where the strata were 

 broken ; much the same as if in the wall of a house some 

 bricks, carelessly laid down, were sticking out from the 

 rest. What made the passage more difficult was that 

 fresh snow was lying on the rocks, which not only caused 

 the footing to be less secure, but prevented you from 

 seeing what you had to tread on. But we got on 

 well some distance in the Wand; and with one foot 

 as firmly planted as T could manage, and leaning my 

 whole body against a heap of snow which had accu- 

 mulated in a nook, I fired, just as the chamois, sus- 

 pecting danger, had started to his feet. It was a long 

 shot, and my position cramped and incommodious, and 

 I missed him ; though by the hair found on the snow 

 where he stood the bullet must have grazed his body. I 

 was afterwards glad I missed, for had the chamois been 

 hit, he would have fallen to a frightful depth, and re- 

 bounding from precipice to precipice, would have reached 

 the bottom an indistinguishable mass. 



Of all the difficulties a chamois hunter may have to en- 

 counter, the most trying is undoubtedly climbing along 

 a "Wand/' or wall of rock. Nerve is very necessary, 

 and a steady head and foot. Your position looks, and 

 in reality is, so fearful as you creep along some ledge — 

 seeming a mere speck, full-grown man as you are, on 

 the vast rock's face — that if you dwell on the thought, 

 and allow the peril to stand before your mind in its 

 reality, you must, I think, be inevitably lost. The 

 danger is so palpably evident to your senses : it stands 

 before you bare and in its very nakedness, that there is 

 no means of self-deception; and while clinging to the 

 rock's face, like a bird to a house- wall, you feel and know 

 you are utterly cut off and away from everything like 



