200 CENTRAL EANGE OF THE GREAT ATLAS ch. tiii. 



enclosed by a still loftier and more stern barrier, the rocks, 

 since tbe sky had become overclouded, having passed from 

 a dull red to a dark brown complexion. The ground for 

 some distance behind the village was flat and swampy, 

 showing that a small moraine lake had been filled up with 

 gravel and silt. On the level space most of the soil was 

 under tillage, and wheat as well as rye and barley are 

 grown, and even maize, as we learned, is raised in this 

 inclement position. On the low dykes that enclose the 

 little fields we noticed Iris germanica, evidently planted,- 

 but whether for the production of orris-root, or for the 

 sake of ornament, we failed to ascertain. The only large 

 tree was the walnut, which had been planted along the 

 skirts of the cultivated ground. 



Now that we were able to pry into the inner recesses 

 of the chain, we perceived that snow lay in abundance at 

 a much lower level than we had hitherto supposed, but 

 nowhere in masses of any great extent. All the higher 

 ridges around us were extremely steep, though not cut 

 into actual precipices ; but on these snow could nowhere 

 accumulate, save in clefts. Towards their base, however, 

 at the foot of each narrow ravine that furrowed their 

 faces, at many spots not much more than a thousand feet 

 above our level, were large patches that seemed likely to 

 maintain their position for some time. Though not with- 

 out experience of mountain lands, we could none of us call 

 to mind any spot much resembling the scene before us. 

 Nowhere in the Alps is there anything of at all a similar 

 character. Excluding the village, and the small fields, 

 and the walnut trees, which, after all, filled but a small 

 space in the view, there was something to remind one of 

 the wilder valleys of the Northern Carpathians, but on a 

 mrfch greater scale. In the Tatra, as here, the rocks rise 

 in broken masses, very steep but not quite precipitous, 

 and the snow is seen only in clefts of the higher ridges, 

 not because the climate forbids it to accumulate, but 

 because the surface affords so few spots on which it can 



