60 SAVAGE SVANETIA. 



long for the tur to come down, that the 

 evening mists were already making our de- 

 scent unusually difficult. Worse than that, 

 Simon lost his way, and in a really thick 

 darkness we now found ourselves on a set of 

 bare rocks, overhanging the glacier, rocks 

 which the rain had made doubly slippery and 

 the darkness doubly dangerous. 



Simon, good mountameer as he was, could 

 not always keep his feet, and unable to see a 

 step before me, with nothing to hold on to, 

 and the memory of yesterday's slide fresh in 

 my mind, I began to feel horribly shaky. 



Every now and then I lost sight of Simon 

 altogether, and had to blunder on and trust to 

 luck to lead me in the ris^ht direction. When 

 I found him again, I don't know that things 

 mended much, for if anything he was in a 

 worse ' funk ' than myself Altogether, when 

 we at last gained the glacier — hot, bruised, and 

 awfully ill-tempered — 'I felt convinced that I 



