224 SAVAGE STANETIA. 



cake apiece, scraping off some of its outer 

 crust to provide us with a pipe after lunch ; 

 we drank and laved our hands and feet and 

 faces at a little stream which welled from an 

 ice field in the saddle between two neighbour- 

 ing peaks, and then we gripped our alpen- 

 stocks and plodded on. 



So sharp were the upturned edges of the 

 rocks that my sandals were hardly sound 

 enough to hold the mountain grass we put 

 into them, and before night my bleeding feet 

 were absolutely bare. The men were in just 

 as bad a plight, or the good fellows would 

 have given me their sandals and gone bare- 

 foot themselves. 



About three o'clock I suppose it was when 

 we got to the downs of Luxhan, splendid 

 little tablelands of short grass between high 

 glacier- adorned peaks on all sides. Here we 

 sat and rested for a few minutes, and here too 

 lost the track of a huge old bear, Avho seemed 



