It was between three and four o'clock. Our path lay up a desolate
mountain gorge. After we had ascended some way the cold became
intense. The mountain torrent, by the side of which we went up, leaped
and tumbled under ribs of ice, and through banks of snow.
I noticed on either side of the defile that there were high posts put
up on the rocks, and a cord stretched from one to the other. The
object of these, my guide told me, was to show the path, when this
whole ravine is filled up with deep snow.
I could not help thinking how horrible it must be to go up here in the
winter.
Our path sometimes came so near to the torrent as to suggest
uncomfortable ideas.
In one place it swept round the point of a rock which projected into
the foaming flood, so that it was completely under water. I stopped a
little before I came to this, and told the guide I wanted to get down.
He was all accommodation, and lifted me from my saddle, and then stood
to see what I would do next. When I made him understand that I meant
to walk round the point, he very earnestly insisted that I should get
back to the saddle again, and was so positive that I had only to obey.
It was well I did so, for the mule went round safely enough, and could
afford to go up to his ankles in water better than I could.
