Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/361

308 the right bank of the Twiber torrent. We passed the customary gîte amidst many self-congratulations. A less pleasing camp it would be difficult to imagine, and it was more than doubtful whether water, that first necessity of camp life, could have been obtained. Then the path either gave out or we hopelessly missed it, and we had to scramble along a steep grass slope till, in utter desperation, we clambered down on to the glacier. We broke the monotony of our walk up the ice by violent efforts to scare two chamois that were watching our movements; but they refused to be alarmed by our yells and gesticulations, and were still strolling about the slopes when we lost sight of them in the distance. Reaching the upper glacier, we found that the snow had been drifted into high ridges. The furrows between were at least fifteen inches deep, and walking across them proved so desperately tiresome that we determined to quit the great glacier and make for a very obvious gap on our left. It is true the Suanetians had expressly warned us against doing so. Possibly this partly prompted our decision, for there is always pleasure in running counter to the piled-up knowledge of the wise.

After a considerable ascent over screes, we reached a snow slope which led us to the pass. In front was a glacier basin, shut in, to the north, by a low wall of jagged rock. This wall evidently swept round further to the east, and enclosed