d by ice; and then for
two hours we descended, lowering ourselves by our hands from rock to
rock along a boulder-strewn sweep of 4,000 feet, patched with ice and
snow, and perilous from rolling stones. My fatigue, giddiness, and
pain from bruised ankles, and arms half pulled out of their sockets,
were so great that I should never have gone halfway had not "Jim,"
nolens volens, dragged me along with a patience and skill, and withal a
determination that I should ascend the Peak, which never failed. After
descending about 2,000 feet to avoid the ice, we got into a deep ravine
with inaccessible sides, partly filled with ice and snow and partly
with large and small fragments of rock, which were constantly giving
away, rendering the footing very insecure. That part to me was two
hours of painful and unwilling submission to the inevitable; of
trembling, slipping, straining, of smooth ice appearing when it was
least expected, and of weak entreaties to be left behind while the
others went on. "Jim" always said that there was no danger, that there
was only a short bad bit ahead, and that I should go up even if he
carried me!

Slipping, faltering, gasping from the exhausting toil in the rarefied
air, with throbbing hearts and panting lungs, we reached the top of the
gorge and squeezed ourselves between two gigantic fragments of rock by
a passage called the "Dog's Lift," when I climbed on the shoulders of
one man and then was hauled up. This introduced us by an abrupt turn
round the south-west angle of the Peak to a narrow shelf of
considerable length, rugged, uneven, and so overhung by the cliff in
some places that it is necessary to crouch to pass at all. Above, the
Peak looks nearly vertical for 400 feet; and below, the most tremendous
precipice I have ever seen descends in one unbroken fall. This is
usually considered the most dangerous part of the ascent, but it does
not seem so to me, for such foothold as there is is secure, and one
fancies that it is possible to hold on with the hands. But there, and
on the final, and, to my thinking, the worst part of the climb, one
slip, and a breathing, thinking, human being would lie 3,000 feet
below, a shapeless, bloody heap! "Ring" refused to traverse the Ledge,
and remained at the "Lift" howling piteously.

From thence the view is more magnificent even than that from the
"Notch." At the foot of the precipice below us lay a lovely lake, wood
embosomed, from or near which th