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No living thing was to be seen, either among the stupendous crags which still towered above, or in the depths which they had left below; but there were several footprints of wolves, all of which Glumm declared, after careful examination, to be old.

In each instance he looked below, waving his hand encouragingly to the anxious one who watched him so closely. On, over fierce crags, around grim towers, along steep walls, higher and higher he crawled. Twice he slipped and fell back several feet.

The almond trees are in full bloom, every twig a thickly-set spike of the pink and white blossoms; daisies and dandelions are out; the purple crocuses sprinkle the ground, the petals exquisitely varied on the reverse side, and the stamens of bright salmon color; the large double anemones have come forth, certain that it is spring; on the higher crags by the wayside the Mediterranean heather has shaken out its delicate flowers, which fill the air with a mild fragrance; while blue violets, sweet of scent like the English, make our path a perfumed one.

Now he was detained only by the fortresses of the knights Hirschhorn and Oberstein, whose situation on inaccessible crags threatened long to defy the imperial power.

The sight of the great green hills with their skirts clothed with wood, with trees straggling upwards along the water-courses, the miniature crags escaping from oak-coppices, the black heads of bleak mountains, filled him with an exquisite and speechless delight.

You will easily believe that I did not require such a summons to make me hasten to his side. An old mountaineer, past fighting, who had guided Mr Popham to Cattaro, offered me his escort, and Spira, who was at the door with her mule, went into an ecstasy of delight at the prospect of showing her dear native crags to "our lady," as she called me.

The resemblance to the successively retreating ramparts of a mountain is almost perfect, and it is heightened by the billowy masses of cloud which roll between the crags and give the effect of perspective.

This was the true haunt of Pan, whose altars are now before me, graven on the marble crags of Hermon. Looking on those altars, and on the landscape, lovely as a Grecian dream, I forget that the lament has long been sung: "Pan, Pan is dead!" In another hour, we reached this place, the ancient Caesarea Philippi, now a poor village, embowered in magnificent trees, and washed by glorious waters.

Throughout the Alps, on lofty crags, great bowlders were often found, which had no relation to the geology of the region and which were called erratics, because they had evidently come there from a distance. But how? Scientists explained it in many ways, but it remained for the mountaineer to suggest that the bowlders had been left in their present positions by glaciers.

From out of the darkening shadows murmurs rose on the softly rising wind. This strange music had a depressing influence; but it did not fill the heart with sorrow, only touched it lightly. And when, with the dying breeze, the song died away, it left the lonely crags lonelier for its death.