OUR FIRST CHAMOIS HUNT. 273 



line of sight, I glanced upward, and far away, on a cliff, 

 saw a feeding chamois. After gazing at the fearless 

 animal, with the keenest interest, for some moments, we 

 drew back and held a council of war to deliberate upon 

 the plan of attack. It was evidently impossible to ap- 

 proach him from where we were. We could not have 

 moved five steps towards him without being discovered. 

 Our success depended upon getting above him, and cut- 

 ting him off from the higher ranges. Crawling back- 

 wards, we managed to place a low range of rocks between 

 ourselves and the cliffs, and then, making a wide sweep, 

 we reached their base at some distance from where the 

 chamois was feeding, in fancied security. After ex- 

 amining the precipice for some time, Spiegle concluded 

 that the only mode of access to its summit, which was 

 at least four hundred feet above us, was by a sort,, of 

 ravine, the broken edges of which would give us some 

 foot and hand hold. At its upper end, we could see part 

 of a glacier, from which a small stream leaped from ledge 

 to ledge. Up we went, dragging ourselves, and each 

 other, up the wet and slippery rocks, getting a dash of 

 icy water in our faces now and then, and at length 

 reached the top of the precipice. 



But the top was scarcely a more desirable promenade 

 than the ascent. If we slipped off a rock, we fell waist 

 deep into soft snow-drifts, and when we tumbled on the 



