scended, the trees decreased in size. We had long
ago left the deciduous foliage behind us; but the pines themselves were
smaller, interspersed with what is called "crooked timber," which grows
in grotesque dwarf-like forms. The forest at last diminished into mere
sparse shrubs, and finally we reached the treeless region, called in
German the _Alpen_, where there is rich pasturage for cattle and sheep
during the summer. We were now on tolerably level ground, and I thought
we should get a trot out of our wretched horses, but no, not a step
faster would they go. I believe we went at the rate of about two miles
and a half an hour. We tried everything--I mean F----and I--to get the
animals to stretch out over the turf; but they set to kicking
vigorously, backing and rearing, so that to avoid giving annoyance to
our companions, we were obliged to give in, and let the brutes go their
own pace.

We had gone but a very little way on the Alpen before we found ourselves
enveloped in a thick mist, added to which the track itself became
uncertain. We went on: if the saying "slow but sure" has any truth in
it, we ought to have been sure enough. My horse reminded me of the reply
of the Somersetshire farmer, who, when he was asked if his horse was
steady, answered, "He be so steady that if he were a bit steadier he
would not go at all." Notwithstanding that we moved like hay-stacks, and
the cavalcade seemed to be treading on one another's heels, yet,
ridiculous to say, we got separated from our baggage. Darkness set in,
and with it a cold drizzling rain--not an animated storm that braces
your nerves, but a quiet soaking rain, the sort of thing that takes the
starch out of one's moral nature.

All at once I was aroused from my apathy by a shout from the front
calling out to the cavalcade to halt. I must observe a fellow on foot
was leading the way in quality of guide. A pretty sort of a guide he
turned out to be. He had led us quite wrong, and in fact found all of a
sudden that he was on the verge of a precipice!

There was a good deal of unparliamentary language, expressed in tones
both loud and deep. It was an act of unwisdom, however, to stop there in
a heap on the grassy slope of a precipice, swearing in chorus at the
poor devil of a Wallack. I turned my horse up the incline, resolved to
try back, hoping to regain the lost track. It was next to impossible to
halt, for we had not even got our plaids with us--everything was with
t