IN THE LAND OF THE BORA. 275 



descending a shaly piece of cliff some furlong to 

 my right, I came to a place where I thought 

 I could get down ; and did so, lifting the dog 

 down, but he absolutely refused to come further. 

 It certainly was very rotten stuff, though coarse 

 grass grew on it ; but a little further on I found 

 out that to go on I must do the next forty feet 

 in one, and that into the crevasse formed by the 

 snow and the base of the cliff. So I clambered 

 back, lifted the dog back again, and went back 

 to the place whence I had fired. A glance showed 

 the dead chamois, and another lying on some 

 shale fifty yards from it. Of course I did not 

 shoot ; I could easily have had another after my 

 first shot had I wished. Again my geography 

 failed me ; the Zeleni Pas is practicable at the 

 angle nearest my camp, but, not knowing this 

 then, I went right back round it again, but 

 struck the snow-slope lower down. It was not 

 a nice place. A ledge of rock, sloping out towards 

 the crevasse it made with the snow, which was a 

 score of feet deep, was so overhung that I could 

 hardly get along it on hands and knees. But, 

 thinking it must be lunch-time, I did go on, 

 pushing gun and stick before me. At the end 

 I could stand upright, so I tossed the dog up 

 the seven-foot bank of frozen snow, cut steps 

 for myself, and followed. A quarter of an hour's 

 cautious descent of the steep snow-slope brought 



