Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1908).djvu/338

332 descend. I managed to get down about sixty feet, but immediately below this point the rock was undercut, and it was, therefore, necessary to traverse into the gully or fault. This traverse was of a very sensational kind, and had to be made on excrescences well rounded by glacial action. Though they just sufficed to maintain one's equilibrium, they left nothing over for emergencies, and the slightest slip with a foot, or any miscalculation of the frictional resistance of fingers on smooth rock, would have involved my swinging free on the rope. The latter would have been extremely unfortunate, for I must necessarily have swung round the corner and dangled six feet or more from the cliff. It may not be beyond the strength of two men to pull a third up sixty feet, but the experimental determination of this problem did not commend itself to me. By the exercise of much care, I succeeded in safely reaching the fault, and was able to just squeeze into a fairly secure cleft.

I then tied my end of the rope on to a piece of strong string, in order that, by so lengthening it, the lower end could always be held by me, and I could thus check any pendulum movement should the Tartar slip. He showed, however, the utmost skill and resolution, and came down without requiring help of any sort. Indeed, his references to Shaitan were of as trifling and perfunctory a sort as is compatible with a sound and unimpaired belief