Now that we were able to pry into the inner recesses of the chain, we perceived that snow lay in abundance at a much lower level than we had hitherto supposed, but nowhere in masses of any great extent. All the higher ridges around us were extremely steep, though not cut into actual precipices; but on these snow could nowhere accumulate, save in clefts. Towards their base, however, at the foot of each narrow ravine that furrowed their faces, at many spots not much more than a thousand feet above our level, were large patches that seemed likely to maintain their position for some time. Though not without experience of mountain lands, we could none of us call to mind any spot much resembling the scene before us. Nowhere in the Alps is there anything of at all a similar character. Excluding the village, and the small fields, and the walnut trees, which, after all, filled but a small space in the view, there was something to remind one of the wilder valleys of the Northern Carpathians, but on a much greater scale. In the Tatra, as here, the rocks rise in broken masses, very steep but not quite precipitous, and the snow is seen only in clefts of the higher ridges, not because the climate forbids it to accumulate, but because the surface affords so few spots on which it can rest. But the rocky masses of the Tatra tend to form isolated peaks, usually of rugged and very steep conical shape; while in this part of the Great Atlas the depressions that separate the summits are of little depth as compared to the great height of the range. Seen from below, as from the spot where we now stood, many points assume the aspect of sharp peaks; but it is easy to ascertain, by varying the point of view, that these are mere projecting bastions from the wall of the main chain, rising little, or not at all, above the level of the adjoining ridges.