Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1908).djvu/283

Rh invaded each individual of the party, and no one would consent to accept the usually coveted distinction of descending as last man. This humility of mind seeming wholly proof to the blandishments of the most artful flattery, we had to seek another method of grappling with the difficulty.

On the inside of the flake, and about six feet below us, was a small ledge from which it appeared that a staircase might be constructed leading obliquely down the crevasse, till it emerged beyond the edge of the flake at the level of the lower snow field. Whether it would be possible to cross the Schrund at this point was not very certain, but in mountaineering something should always be left to luck. It adds such zest and interest to the proceedings!

No sooner had I scrambled down to the ledge and begun work on the staircase than the general opinion of the party veered round till it once more favoured the jump. Collie went so far as to offer to lower us down and then risk the thirty feet. But there are few pleasures of the muscular sort keener than that afforded by cutting down a crevasse—even the joys of rock climbing pale before those of perpendicular ice—the remonstrances from above remained, in consequence, unheeded, and I hewed my way down into the blue depths. It was at first possible to descend with one foot in a hole in the flake and the other resting on the parent mass; so