394 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



stone, without the slightest trace of vegetation. At 

 the foot of it we saw fifteen chamois, but after having 

 spent some hours in trying to approach them were 

 obliged to desist. Later we saw eleven, but they too 

 were unapproachable. That night we returned to the 

 hut, and the following day started for our old hunting- 

 ground, Gleirsch Joch. I knew we were certain to see 

 game there, and though the ground was most unfavour- 

 able for stalking, I still hoped to get a shot. On our 

 way we saw five and afterwards six chamois. 



From a distance we saw the herd disporting them- 

 selves on the ridge, then disappearing among the pre- 

 cipices, then emerging again from the " Wand." Most 

 of them, no doubt, were on the ledges on the precipi- 

 tous north side. The only thing to be clone was to send 

 Bradler in where I had been a day or two before, and so 

 disturb the chamois and cause them to come out on the 

 summit. Downwards they were sure not to go. So I set 

 off for the place, and making a sort of screen before me 

 of the stones lying about, I sat and waited. By-and-by 

 I could just see on my right, above me against the sky, 

 a head or two and crooked horns. Then more and more. 

 The herd was moving, but unluckily instead of emerging 

 from the Wand where I expected they would, a little 

 further off in front of me, they were all making their 

 appearance so much to my right that I could but glance 

 at them from the corner of my eye, though at last I did 

 gently move my head a little more round. But to turn 

 so as to bring my rifle up to my shoulder was out of the 

 question. They would have been off and down the pre- 

 cipice on the other side in a moment. There they stood 

 on the sky-line, twenty or more together, looking down 

 towards me. I thought they would never have done 

 staring. Some strolled here, others there, but not any 



