We cross clay, rock and gravel slides at a giddy height. To look down gives one an uncontrollable dizziness, to make the head swim and the view unsteady, even with men of tried nerve. I do not think that I can ever forget that terrible walk; it was the greatest trial I ever experienced. We are from five to eight hundred feet high on a path of from ten to fifteen inches wide and at some points almost obliterated, with slopes above and below us so steep that a stone would roll into the torrent in the abyss below. There are no trees or branches or twigs which we can grip to aid us in our advance on the narrow, precarious footing. We become more sensible to the difficulties we encounter each step as we go forward. The sun came out with unusual power; our day’s effort has caused no little of a strain, and the perspiration is running from us like water. I, myself felt as if I had been dragged through a brook, for I was without a dry shred on me. About three miles from the mouth of the Kicking-Horse Valley we met Major Rogers and Major Hurd. At the same time we obtained the first uninterrupted look upon the Selkirk range. From this point to the Columbia the trail improved, but it still ran at a great height. We had not, however, got out of our difficulties, for we came upon a hornets’ nest. The leading horses were stung and darted forward. To have been attacked by the whole colony on so narrow a path might have caused serious disaster, so we abandoned the trail and traced a new route for ourselves to avoid that which we were following, and thus escaped the dilemma. The Kicking-Horse Valley turns into the valley of the Columbia River, which at the junction is some twelve miles wide from peak to peak. Our train has now travelled through the whole valley of the Kicking-Horse from its summit to the flats of the Columbia, a distance of about fifty miles, with a descent of 2,700 feet; the average fall is about fifty-seven feet to the mile, the first six miles however, give a descent of twelve hundred feet, being two hundred feet per mile; the last ten miles the river falls at an average of sixty feet per mile, leaving on the intervening thirty-two miles an average fall of thirty feet per mile. Arrived at Major Rogers’ camp, I own I was weary and foot-sore after our frightful march of many miles over rough ground high up on the mountain side, over a path every step of which was a renewed difficulty. I was somewhat indemnified by knowing that the horses had travelled without a mishap. I thought of the _Mauvais-pas_ at Chamouni, which, extending only a few hundred yards, is thought to be a feat in its way, even with a special guide leading the traveller, holding his hand; but the _Mauvais-pas_ of the Kicking-Horse Valley extended for miles, and they were only passed over from the very desperation of our circumstances. Having entered on the journey we could not turn back and we had to face the difficulties in our front cost what it would.