THE TYROL. — SCHARNITZ. 395 



where I wanted them to go. How cordially I was abu- 

 sing them to myself all the while ! At last a yearling 

 buck thought he would see what strange animal had 

 come up into their haunts, and walked down to have 

 a better look at me. He turned his head to the right 

 and to the left, but it was evident he grew no whit the 

 wiser. Then he walked further down, and stopping op- 

 posite me stared full into my face. But he could not 

 make it out, for I was motionless as a stone ; my eyes 

 even did not move. He seemed determined to give it 

 up, and was moving, when, as I saw there was no hope 

 of the others coming in that direction, I fired at him. 

 He bounded away for a few yards, but soon I saw him 

 rolling over and over down the steep mountain, till 

 stopped at last by a stone. I went to fetch him, and 

 then up to the ridge. This was the highest point. From 

 here you looked down into deep craters, jagged, gloomy, 

 horrid. I stepped across to a narrow ledge, and holding 

 by a pinnacle of rock, got round it, so as to see down 

 into the chasm. It was a horrible place ; I do not 

 think I have seen any so frightful. From the spot 

 where I stood the rocks went down perpendicularly like 

 a shaft for 150 feet; a narrow, appalling descent. All 

 was calcined and brittle as if from fire, and crumbled 

 away in your hand or beneath your foot. Further out 

 rose from the abyss broken barren rocks, and at their 

 foot were depths your eye could not penetrate. On such 

 a jagged ridge were now about a dozen chamois. They 

 had gone thither after my shot. But even they now 

 could get no further. There was no passage, no egress 

 beyond, and not a chamois could leap down such pre- 

 cipices. They saw and heard us, as we saw them. There 

 they stood gazing, wondering, and scared. It was too 

 far to fire, besides had I shot one, it would have been 



