Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/75

54 bearing a little to the left, we crept slowly up the bare, shiny slope, till the broad expanse of the couloir above the rocks and their overhanging roofs of ice was reached. To our left, under the shadow of the gaunt cliffs of the Matterhorn, great patches and streaks of snow still adhered to the ice. The snow was not of great thickness, nowhere exceeding four or five inches, but it was slightly frozen to the slope below, and we mounted rapidly on shallow notches chipped in this loose veneer. In places the snow had slipped away, and we had to cut across the intervening patches of ice, but, as we advanced, the snow became more continuous, and our spirits rose rapidly. It was, however, obvious that the aid of this thin covering of snow was only to be had at the cost of deliberately abandoning all possibility of retreat. So soon as the sun should touch this slope and the frost be relaxed, any attempt to meddle with it could only result in a swirling slide, a long bounce at the point where the rocks protrude, and a final drop into the Bergschrund. This consideration urged us forwards, and kept the steps at the smallest size compatible with standing on them. From time to time we paused a moment to gaze upwards at the sun-tipped ridge, towering at a tremendous height above us, and across which delicate films and streamers of mist were curling. Could we ever reach it? The grim cliffs of the Matterhorn and Tête du Lion