438 The Hunting Grounds 



is brought to mind. It rang throughout the country 

 as the final adieu of thousands as they marched to 

 embark for the seat of war, and after a lapse of years 

 it was re-echoed by the few who returned, covered 

 with wounds and honour but broken down in health 

 and spirits, when they were welcomed home by their 

 Sovereign and grateful countrymen. My gentle 

 reader, my voice has swelled that cry on all of these 

 occasions, but never did it burst from my bosom with 

 such an intense feeling of satisfaction without alloy 

 as when I first placed foot upon the mighty El-Bruz. 

 I mounted a heap of rocks that lay piled in confu- 

 sion along a craggy ridge jutting out of the snow, as 

 it appeared to be the highest point, and surveyed at 

 leisure the wonderful scene before me. The higher 

 summit still towered like a mass of sparkling alabaster 

 some three thousand feet above the crest upon which 

 I was standing, but even had the day not been so far 

 advanced I could not have made any attempt to reach 

 it, as a scarped precipice over six hundred feet in 

 depth, an inaccessible glacier, and a ridge of bluff 

 peaks divided us, although it looked almost within the 

 range of my rifle. Could I even have descended and 

 made a circuit of the lower summit, the glacier was 

 an obstacle that would have been insurmountable, as 

 in it were stupendous icebergs and wave upon wave 

 of precipitous ridges with steep scarped sides, appa- 

 rently inaccessible to the foot of man, which gave me 



