82 
clarke’s travels, 
- 
a e many wild boars, the traces of whose ploughing were very 
fresh in many places. Higher up, our guides showed to us marks 
left by the feet of tigers. They find also leopards in these 
wilds, and are obliged to take their skins, when any are kill¬ 
ed, to the pacha of the Dardanelles. The extensive survey 
we should enjoy from the heights was occasionally disclosed by 
partial openings in this scene of forests. Already the whole 
island of Tenedos was in view, and all the Trojan plain. Our 
guides began to talk of the impossibility of reaching the top of 
the mountain, and murmured their alarms of chasms and preci¬ 
pices in the glacier above: at this I did not wonder, having 
often been accustomed to such treatment in similar enterprises. 
I expected to be deserted by them in the end, and it proved 
to be the case ; although I confess I was not prepared for what 
I encountered afterward. At length we cleared the zone of 
forests: all above was icy, bleak, and fearful. Our little party, 
by the number of stragglers, was soon reduced to a small band. 
Neither the Jewish interpreter, w hom we had brought from the 
Dardanelles, nor the artist, would go a step farther. One of 
ihe guides, with Mr. Cripps, and our Greek servant, remained 
with me. We were reduced to the necessity of advancing upon 
our hands and feet, neither of w hich made the smallest impres¬ 
sion upon the icy surface of the snow. Soon afterward we 
found ourselves hanging over the brink of a precipice, so tre^ 
meodous, that the slightest slip of one of our feet would, we 
perceived, afford a speedy passage to eternity. Here our ser¬ 
vant refused to proceed, and the guide was only prevented from 
leaving me by brandy. I therefore prevailed on Mr. Cripps, 
much against his inclination, to remain behind ; and by making 
holes for our hands and feet, advanced with the guide. The 
mountain has four points of eminence toward the summit, each 
of which is higher than the other. Our progress led us to the 
third of these; the lowest, except one; and this point we at¬ 
tained in the manner I have described. From hence the tran¬ 
sition to the base of the second point, over the frozen snow along 
the ridge of the mountain, was made without difficulty : al¬ 
though the slope on each side presented a frightful precipice of 
above a thousand feet. At the base of the second point, view¬ 
ing the sheet of ice before him, my guide positively refused to 
proceed; and finding me determined to make the trial, he began 
to scream w ith ail bis might, breaking off with his feet some 
nodules of the frozen snow, in order to intimidate me, by show¬ 
ing how the smallest fragment set in motion was carried into the 
