“I scarcely know how to describe them; they look like pattens at a distance, and are buckled over the shoes in the same manner, but they are provided with four strong iron spikes, to enable you to plant your feet steadily in the ground, or in the fissures of the rocks.” “That’s it!” cried Hamilton. “_They_ were also in the description which I read.” “Do not have too exalted an idea of the danger on that account,” answered A. Z., laughing; “for I have heard that many people who inhabit the mountainous parts of this country use them when they walk on the snow in winter.” “So, after all,” said Hamilton, “a chamois-hunt is quite a common sort of thing.” “You are falling into the contrary extreme now,” said Baron Z—; “for, though it is no uncommon thing, strong sinews, good lungs, a quick eye, and a steady hand are always required in order to be successful.” They arrived at Ruhpolding, and found their guides waiting for them—tall, strong-looking men, with sunburnt faces and bushy mustaches. Their dress was of coarser materials, but in other respects quite resembling Baron Z—’s, excepting that their grey stockings, with a fanciful pattern in green, were short, and left their knees perfectly bare. On their shoulders were slung canvas bags, into which they immediately packed the cloaks, shawls, and provisions of every description. A couple of miles beyond Ruhpolding the carriage was abandoned, and the party commenced their expedition on a footway through the Fishbach valley. The vegetation around them was of the richest colouring, the mossy grass under the trees of the deepest green; and wild berberry trees, with their delicate leaves and pendent crimson berries grew luxuriantly in every direction. A variety of beautifully delicate wild-flowers pleased Hamilton’s eye, but he looked on with some impatience, while A. Z. and her husband leisurely gathered and examined some, took others up by the roots, and placed all in a tin box, evidently brought for the purpose. Long and serious too were the discussions about them, which, as Hamilton did not understand, he was glad when, in contrast to this scene of fertility, their way brought them to the immediate base of the mountains, where it ran parallel with the dry bed of a torrent almost deserving the name of river when in spring it rushes from its snowy source, sweeping away heaps of stones and trunks of torn-up trees, which, thrown high on either side, leave the valley between a scene of stony desolation. They continued for a considerable time between the almost perpendicular sides of the mountains, sometimes climbing over colossal masses of stone, at others enjoying the shade of the thick pine-trees or over-hanging rocks, when, on passing an abrupt turn, a foaming waterfall seemed suddenly to prevent all further progress; for, after passing over the very path they were pursuing, it bounded from the rocks, which sometimes arrested, but