52 HARMONIES. 



is practicable, the guide places a large stone at the top, 

 gives it a gentle push, and watches its progress. If the 

 snow is soft enough to impede its pace, and allow it to 

 form a furrow for itself and glide gradually down, the 

 descent is pronounced feasible ; if, on the contrary, the 

 snow is not soft enough for this, but the stone descends 

 in successive bounds, it is pronounced too dangerous to 

 attempt. It is quite wonderful to see the rapidity and 

 ease with which the guide will shoot down these snow- 

 mountains, like an arrow from a bow. Placing both feet 

 together, with nothing in his hands to steady him, but 

 bearing your heavy provision-box and blankets at his 

 back, down he goes, his pace accelerating every second 

 till he reaches the bottom, and enveloped all the way 

 down in a wreath of snow, which he casts off on both 

 sides of his feet and legs as if it had been turned up by 

 a plough, and marking his track by a deep furrow. You 

 follow much more slowly, holding the barrel of your gun 

 across you, while the butt end is plunged deep into the 

 snow to steady you, and to slacken your pace. If you 

 lean forward too much, you are in danger of going down 

 head over heels ; if you lean back too much, your feet 

 will slip from under you, and the same result will inevi- 

 tably follow, and you will have a roll of, perhaps, some 

 hundred feet, without a chance of stopping till you reach 

 the bottom ; by no means pleasant even on snow, and 

 especially when the snow-hill ends (as is not unfrequently 

 the case) in a rocky precipice, to roll over which must be 

 certain death. 



