390 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



help. Above your head, high, high up, nothing but bare 

 stone ; before you, on and still on before you, bare stone 

 again j and beneath, perhaps you cannot see to the bottom 

 on account of some projecting crag, but occasionally a 

 stone your foot has dislodged goes whizzing through the 

 air, and leaping over the promontory is heard, though 

 faintly, still rolling in the gulf below. How far down 

 it is ! How little every object looks at the foot of the 

 mountain ! Houses and trees are dots ; but up here all 

 is of tremendous size, — all except yourself, — and you in 

 your own eyes seem the very smallest of dots. Your ac- 

 tual position, moreover, is so peculiar. On one side of 

 you, — quite close, touching your hip at every step, — is 

 the rock, so that there is no room for free action there ; 

 while on the other is air, nothing but air, so that here 

 too, not having wings, you are shut in also. 



Your disposition on the particular day or at the mo- 

 ment will often enable you to attempt such passage or 

 warn you to desist. What you may do today, you 

 may not be able to essay even tomorrow. You feel you 

 have not the heart to venture, nor do you. A few days 

 after going into the Wand where the chamois was, I came 

 by the place again. There were no chamois there ; but 

 by passing along the Wand and coming out further on, 

 I should have emerged in the neighbourhood of a herd 

 in front of me, and which it was impossible to approach 

 unperceived in any other way. But although the last 

 time I had gone on without a moment's hesitation, I 

 had not the least inclination to go there now : for some 

 reason or other I did not like it ; and the more I thought 

 about it the less it pleased me; so I turned away and 

 went on. The view from the summit of this mountain 

 is not only very grand, but is also peculiar. It is so si- 

 tuated that you see into the whole of the Leutash Vale, 



