ich lay about here and there on the ground; and the flutter of wings
overhead explained to us that the old ravens had built their nest in the
mouth of the cave, and had brought morsels of raw flesh to their young
ones, which were scarcely able to fly. I am ashamed to say that we were
so angry with the old birds for shrieking so suggestively in our ears,
and parading before us the results of a slip on the rocks, that we
charged ourselves with stones, and put an end to the most noisy member
of the foul brood; Christian making some of the worst shots it is
possible to conceive, and raining blocks of stone and lumps of wood in
all directions, with such reckless impartiality, that the only safe
place seemed to be between him and the bird. One of us, at least,
regretted the useless cruelty as soon as it was perpetrated, and it came
back upon me very reproachfully at an awkward part of our return
journey.

The Schafloch does not take its name from the bones contained in it, as
is the case with the Kuehloch in Franconia,[58] but from the fact that
when a sudden storm comes on, the sheep and goats make their way to the
cave for shelter, never, I was told, going so far as the commencement of
the ice. The entrance faces ESE., and is of large size, with a low wall
built partly across it to increase the shelter for the sheep: Dufour
calls the entrance 50 feet wide and 25 feet high, but I found the width
at the narrowest part, a few yards within the entrance, to be 33
feet.[59] For a short distance the cave passes horizontally into the
rock, in a westerly direction, and is quite light; it then turns sharp
to the south, the floor beginning to fall, and candles becoming
necessary. Here the height increases considerably, and the way lies over
a wild confusion of loose masses of rock, which have apparently fallen
from the roof, and make progression very difficult. We soon reached a
point where ice began to appear among the stones; and as we advanced it
became more and more prominent, till at length we lost sight of the
rock, and stood on solid ice.

On either side of the cave was a grand column of ice forming the
portal, as it were, through which we must pass to further beauties.
The ice-floor rose to meet these columns in a graceful swelling curve,
perfectly continuous, so that the general effect was that of two
columns whose roots expanded and met in the middle of the cave; and,
indeed, that may have been really the order of formation