292 TRAVELS IN THE EIGHTIES. 



for such, abnormal climbing power, creatures so plainly 

 visible from afar would fall an easy victim in summer- 

 time to the sure-footed, bare-footed Indian hunter. 



As I turned away I felt that I had been looking in 

 solitude upon the sublime. I had seen nature combin- 

 ing opposite moods of sternness and love more inti- 

 mately than I was ever likely to again. 



This was not the last I saw of the wild white goat 

 of the Eocky Mountains. On the way back, as we 

 skirted the east side of the inlet, I observed in several 

 places small groups of the white goats about four 

 thousand feet above the calm water of the inlet on 

 which we were gliding. They resembled small white 

 lumps of snow, and were always in the most inaccess- 

 ible positions ; and for snow I had taken them. High 

 up among some green vegetation opposite Point Bluff 

 a group of four could be discerned, apparently having 

 chosen a position surrounded on every side by the 

 most vertical walls of rock. 



At length I always commenced my search for them 

 with the field- glass first along the steepest and most 

 inaccessible declivities. Nature not having adapted 

 them to the possibility of concealment except on snow, 

 any which existed were soon seen white, next to 

 black, being the colour the most easily observed. 

 Game gifted with such marvellous power of climbing 

 can never suffer extermination, like the buffalo or the 

 dodo in the past, or as in the near future, the sea 

 otter, beaver, wapiti, Kashmir red deer, or African 

 elephant. 



