VV AMONG TPIE CLOUDS. 301 



with liis habitually naked feet and toes as prehensile as a 

 monkey's, and for l*iiddoo, who could without inconveni- 

 ence go barefooted when he chose; but, for myself with 

 my boots, had I known wdiat I was being let in for, I 

 think that, considering all things, my weak shoulder in- 

 cluded, I should have chosen the longer route. We con- 

 tinued our steep ascent until we reached what appeared, 

 through the clouds that enveloped our more distant sur- 

 roundings, to be a ridge of huge rugged rocks, from 

 whence a dark narrow chasm descended abruptly into 

 infinite misty space below. Black wall-like crags rose 

 on both sides of a narrow strip of hard snow, shooting 

 downward at an angle of something less than 45 degrees. 

 Down this gloomy forbidding-looking abyss our way now 

 led. We commenced the descent by lowering ourselves 

 over an almost perpendicular face of rock for some twenty 

 feet on to the sloping slippery snow-bed, down which we 

 went slowly and carefully, having often to notch the hard 

 snow for foothold. Thus we proceeded over alternate 

 snow and bare rock, with the same clouded emptiness 

 still below us, until we must have descended at least 

 1000 feet, when the monotony of our precarious and 

 seemingly endless undertaking was varied by a musk-deer 

 starting up close to us. As he stood to look back within 

 twenty-five paces, his dim shadowy form looming large 

 and spectre-like through the mist, I got hold of the rifle 

 from Puddoo, who was carrying it, and rolled him over ; 

 but as he contrived to struggle away for a short distance 

 down the rocks, we had some trouble in securing him. 

 This caused considerable delay ; consequently, by the 

 time Ganna had shouldered him, the already waning 

 light had almost failed us. Down and still down we 

 scrambled through the murky mist, until at length it 

 grew so dark as to make it next thing to impossible to 

 move a step without danger of missing our footing. 

 Matters were now getting rather serious, for our guide, 



