The Sierra Nevada 307 
under way—six of us—on mules, though I would have preferred 
to walk, the snow being so deep one could not see where the 
edges of the precipices were. No sooner had I mounted than the 
mule fell down while crossing a hill-torrent, and I was glad to 
find the water no deeper. 
After climbing steadily upward all the morning, the last two 
hours on foot, the snow knee-deep, we at length sighted the 
cairn on the height to which we were bound. Before nightfall 
we had reached the point, but few of the mules accomplished the 
last few hundred yards. After bravely trying again and again, 
the poor beasts sank exhausted in the snow, and we had to carry 
up the impedimenta ourselves in repeated journeys. The deep 
snow, the tremendous ascent, and impossibility of seeing a foot- 
hold made this porterage most laborious, but we had all safely 
stowed in our cave before sundown. 
The overhanging rock, which for the next ten or twelve days 
was to serve as our abode, we found a mass of icicles. These we 
proceeded to clear away, and then by a good fire to melt our ice- 
enamelled ceiling, fancying that the constant drip on our noses all 
night might be unpleasant. ‘The altitude of our ledge above sea- 
level was about 8500 feet, and our plateau of rest—our home, so 
to speak—measured just seven yards by two. 
Early next morning we proceeded to erect snow-screens at 
favourable ‘ passes,” wherein to await the wild-goats as they 
moved up or down the mountain-side at dawn and dusk re- 
spectively, their favourite food being the rye-grass which the 
peasants from the villages below contrive to grow in tiny patches 
—two or three square yards scattered here and there amidst the 
crags. It is only by rare industry that even so paltry a crop can 
be snatched at such altitudes, and during the short period when 
the snow is absent from the southern aspects. At present it 
enveloped everything—not a blade of vegetation nor a mouthful 
for a wild-goat could be seen. 
Although during the day the snow was generally soft—the 
sun being very hot—yet after dark we found the way dangerous, 
traversing a sloping, slippery ice-surface like a huge glacier, where 
a slip or false step would send one down half a mile with nothing 
to clutch at, or to save oneself. Such a slide meant death, for 
it could only terminate in a precipice or in one of those horrible 
holes with a raging torrent to receive one in its dark abyss, and 
