12 IBEX SHOOTING 



morning, we were on the top of a pass 

 covered with perhaps twenty feet of snow ; 

 on either side, high peaks also deep in 

 virgin snow ; in front, two ridges running 

 down and away between them, walled in by 

 their stupendous sides, the narrow valley 

 through which lay our path ; and beyond 

 this the mountains proper. What we had 

 come over was, it is true, some 13,000 feet 

 high, but it was a mole-hill compared to 

 the masses we saw in front, rising tier 

 after tier, one behind the other, with their 

 craggy toppling heads virgin white, with 

 great black shadows, silhouetted against the 

 cold glow of the now rising winter's sun. 



As I looked towards our road, I saw and 

 grasped what these men, born and bred in 

 the hills, had been afraid of, and I under- 

 stood it better and better as we steeply 

 climbed down into what seemed a grave. 

 The bottom of the valley we were about 

 to traverse was but some twenty yards 

 wide, and on both sides the snow-clad hills 

 rose to heaven. There was no good object- 



