UP AMONG THE CLOUDS.
ON THE GEMMI.
Nevertheless, on the fearful precipices for which the Gemmi is noted, one may be pardoned for being a trifle nervous. At certain points the bridle-path so skirts the chasm that one false step would land the fragments of your body on the rocks a thousand feet below; while, on the other side, the mountain towers up abrupt and bare, with scarce a shrub or tree to cling to or console the dizzy traveler. My flesh creeps now to think of some of these places; and in the same space of time I think I never repented of so many sins, as during that passage of the Gemmi. At length, however, the climax seemed reached; for at the brink of one abyss the path appeared to end. I cautiously advanced to the edge and looked over. It was a fearful sight, for here the mountain falls away to a sheer depth of sixteen hundred feet, and the plumb-line might drop to that full length without encountering any obstacle.
LEUK.