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.
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