Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/255

210 deep gully by the constant fall of stones, ice, snow, and water. The floor of this gully was some twelve feet lower than the remainder of the slope, and the falling débris had built up a cone underneath, exactly where it was wanted. The overhanging ice-wall was reduced by this arrangement to a manageable height of about ten feet, and Burgener decided that it could be climbed. He promptly made me a good step on the top of the cone and cut some hand holes in the wall opposite. I found on reaching the cone that it was cut off from the cliff opposite by a gap about four feet wide; leaning across this and putting my hands into the holes cut ready for me, I formed an insecure sort of bridge. Burgener then proceeded to climb up my body and on to my shoulders. He did not seem to think much of the stability of the human edifice thus raised, and his step-cutting was correspondingly slow. Indeed, so hard were the nails in Burgener's boots, so cold the ice to my fingers, and so interminable the chipping, that to my disordered imagination it seemed as if eternity itself must be rapidly drawing to a close.

At length, three steps below the lip and one above, with all the necessary hand-holds, were duly completed, and Burgener, bidding me hold fast, gave a half-spring and scrambled up the steps over the lip and on to the slope. I was soon so battered by the lumps of ice hewn out by his axe