LOSE HEART. 225 



to have preceded us the whole of our journey 

 until now. But here, alas ! we found a track 

 far more formidable to us than that of the 

 bear. There it was, plain enough, the impress 

 of a sandal, and the square little hole in which 

 the wearer of it had stuck his mountaineer's 

 pike. AVhat with the fatigue and the dis- 

 appointment of again finding someone before 

 me, in a place not known to one hunter in ten 

 among the neighbouring villages, I faMy lost 

 heart, and I could hardly believe my ears 

 when Simon crept to my side and whispered 

 ' Djikve arrees ' (there's an ibex). 



The tableland of oTass on which we were 

 ended abruptly in a precipice, from which we 

 looked down on a o-Iacier. several hundred feet 

 below. On the opposite side the glacier rose 

 a bare precipitous wall of rock, reaching far 

 above the level of the tableland on which we 

 stood, to the topmost crags of Luxhan. On 

 this wall, which as the crow flies was not so 



VOL. I. Q 



