BROWN BEARS AND MARMOTS. 99 



tlioir being plentiful there, for I saw five. First we espied 

 three together, but they had unfortunately got our wind, 

 and were in full retreat. Just as it was getting dark we 

 saw two others eating the green grass on an open space 

 at the bottom of a gully flanked with birches. By the 

 time we got near them, the light was so bad that I was 

 unable to see the fore-sight of the rifle ; but the loud 

 response made by one of them to my shot, showed that it 

 liad told. The beast, however, made ofif with its companion, 

 and it was too dark to follow it up. 



As the snow on the pass would be easier for our laden 

 men to travel over when hard frozen in the early morning, 

 we were off again at the first break of dawn. The ascent to 

 the pass, though short and comparatively easy, was never- 

 theless pretty steep and rough. Silver birches now took 

 the place of conifers, and still higher, tangled masses of 

 juniper - bushes spread themselves widely over the open 

 hillsides, which were craggy, broken, and here and there 

 covered with patches of snow. On the pass, which is 

 12,000 feet high, where our track was almost level for 

 some distance, the snow still lay very deep, and we often 

 sank up to the knees in it. Several times we had to wade 

 through a half-frozen stream, from the cold of which our 

 legs were tolerably well protected by the p^iUees that were 

 bound round them ; but our feet, on which we wore only 

 poolas over our stockings, suffered terribly. Fortunately 

 the sky was overcast with clouds ; for, on the higher ranges, 

 if the eyes are not protected with a coloured veil or goggles, 

 the sun's glare off the snow frequently causes temporary 

 blindness, which sometimes lasts for several days. 



We saw numbers of marmots, here called " drin," among 

 the loose fragments of rock that had slipped from the flank- 

 ing heights, and were piled together in confused heaps, off 

 which the snow had partially melted. The creatures, on 

 observing us, would sit up on their hind legs and utter their 

 shrill, chirping cry, like a loud dog-whistle blown sharp and 



