22 TEAYEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



each one you arrive at, and these individually vary 

 constantly, so that the most experienced guide can 

 have no fixed plan of route. The fissure you can 

 leap across to-day, becomes by to-morrow a yawning 

 gulf. 



Young Devouassoud now took the lead, with a 

 light axe to cut out footsteps and hand-holds with 

 when necessary, and we all followed, very cautiously 

 placing our feet in the prints already made. " Glioisez 

 vos pas " was a phrase we heard every minute. Our 

 progress was necessarily very slow ; and sometimes 

 we were brought up altogether for a quarter of an 

 hour, whilst a council was held as to the best way 

 of surmounting a difficulty. Once only the neck of 

 ice along which we had to pass was so narrow that 

 I preferred crossing it saddle-fashion, and so working 

 myself on with my hands. It was at points similar 

 to this that I was most astonished at the daring and 

 sure-footedness of the guides. They took the most 

 extraordinary jumps, alighting upon banks of ice 

 that shelved at once clean down to the edges of 

 frightful crevices, to which then* feet appeared to 

 cling like those of flies. And yet we were all shod 

 alike in good stout " shooting-shoes," with a double 

 row of hobnails; but, where I was sliding and 

 tumbling about, they stood like rocks. In all this 

 there was, however, little physical exertion for us 

 it was simply a matter of nerve and steady head. 

 Where the crevice was small, we contrived to jump 



