n a very steep part, and never knowing any moment
but what I might start again. With much difficulty, however, I at length
succeeded in getting myself the right way up, and then descended with
great care to the bottom of the ravine, intending if possible to walk
along the course of the stream in its hollow till it should lead me to
the enclosed country. The ravine, however, was so choked up with snow,
that to walk along the valley was utterly impossible. The drifts were
many feet over my head, in several places they must have been at least
twenty feet in depth; and having once got into them, I had the greatest
difficulty, by scratching and struggling, to extricate myself from them
again. It was now dark. I did not know into which of the ravines I had
fallen, for at this part there is a complete network of them intersecting
each other in every direction. The only way by which I had thought to
escape was hopelessly blocked up, and I had to face the awful fact that I
was lost among the hills, should have to spend the night there, and that,
humanly speaking, it was almost impossible that I could survive it.

The instinct of self-preservation, however, is strong, even when a
fearful death seems close at hand, and there were others for whose sake,
even more than my own, I desired that night that my life might be spared,
if such were God's will. I knew that, under Providence, all depended on
my own powers of endurance, and that the struggle for life must be a very
severe one. The depth of the snow made walking a very exhausting effort.
It was always up to my knees, more often up to my waist; but my only
chance, as I was well aware, was to keep moving; and having extricated
myself at last from the drifts in the ravine, I began to climb the
opposite side of the hill, though I had not the least idea in which
direction I ought to go. As I made my way upwards, I saw just in front
of me what looked like a small shadow flitting about, for owing to the
white ground it was never completely dark. I was much surprised at this,
especially as when I came close to it, it disappeared into the snow, with
the exception of one round dark spot, which remained motionless. I put
my hand down upon this dark object to ascertain what it could possibly
be, and found that I had got hold of a hare's head! I saw many of these
little animals in the course of the night. They made holes in the snow
for shelter, and sat in them well protected by t