246 SAVAGE SVANETIA. 



awarded to Simon as liis share. No Turkish 

 porter of Constantinople, no Swiss mountaineer 

 (not even Adolphe Foliguet, who I remember 

 to have seen carry a heavy English Lady from 

 ' les Pendants ' to the valley with scarcely a 

 pause to get his wind again) but I venture 

 to assert would have hesitated before he under- 

 took Simon's task that night. 



We got safely down the precipitous part 

 of the descent while there was still some light 

 in the sky ; but before we had been blundering 

 blindly in the first belt of wood between us 

 and the valley much more than an hour, 

 night set in — a night without a moon, and no 

 stars visible through the clouds. At first the 

 men tried hard to find a way down to the open, 

 but we soon found that the end of this would 

 be a false step over a precipice, or the straying 

 of some member of our party. Then we 

 hoped that in the valley below there might be 

 some Svans, with their flocks, to whom the 



