THE WATERSHED AT LAST. 261 



the Aletsch glacier liad come upon them by the Jimgfrau 

 Joch, they would have been likely to exaggerate their 

 effect. A similar allowance must be made for us. The 

 principal cause of perplexity was our inability to recognise, 

 in any of the peaks now in sight, the two summits of 

 Adai Khokh, so conspicuous from the eastern branch of 

 the Uion basin, and which we had hitherto confidently 

 reckoned on as landmarks. Each had a different theory, 

 but there was no time to stop and argue it out ; so we 

 agreed, by a majority' of voices, to put our trust in the 

 compass, and push up the southern bay, as that direction 

 must, we believed, ultimately bring us to a point overlook- 

 ing the E,ion valley. 



There are no incidents to relate in a three-hours' tramp 

 across a soft snowfield, but such an operation is not to be 

 lightly estimated, because it occupies but a brief space in 

 the narration. Each in turn took the arduous task of lead- 

 ing — no slight exertion, when the leader sank at every step 

 nearly up to his knees. The mountain we had seen from 

 the bivouac now towered grandly in our rear, its western 

 summit offering a striking resemblance to the Matterhorn 

 from Breuil. In front the monotonous snow-plain seemed 

 more endless the further we advanced ; on the left hummock 

 after hummock was passed, while on the opposite side some 

 projecting rocks were for long our goal. They were reached 

 and left behind, and still there was no change in the same- 

 ness of the view, except the more prominent appearance of 

 a considerable mountain on the right, which now revealed 

 itself as our old acquaintance, Tau Burdisula, under a new 

 aspect. At last, about 4 p. m., we reached an almost 

 imperceptible watershed, first indicated by the appearance 

 of the blue ridges of the far-off Achaltzich mountains over 

 the neighbouring snows. 



For some distance the fall was as slight as the rise had 



