After consulting some time, we decided to lower ourselves down to this rock-band, and make it the base of our further movements, instead of operating, as we had intended, from the crest of the cliff, where everything but for this obstacle would have been tenfold easier. Posting one of the men at the top of the cliff to lower the heavy rope, three hundred feet in length, by means of a cord, we descended to the ledge, which was nowhere more than three feet in width, and in several places scarcely over a foot and a half. Standing in a single row on this miniature platform, we had to manipulate the rope with a yawning gulf some eight hundred feet in depth beside us, and nothing to lay hold of for support but the smooth face of the rock.
We began operations by driving a strong iron hook into the solid rock, at a point some two or three feet above the ledge. Through this hook the rope was passed, one end pendent over the cliff; and to obviate the peril of its being frayed and speedily severed by the sharp outer edge of our platform, we rigged up a block of wood with some iron stays to serve as an immovable pulley. These preparations completed, the men were assigned to their respective positions. Hansel and Tomerl, two renowned shots, were to lie at full length, rifle in hand, one at each end of the row, to act as my guardian angels if I were surprised and attacked by the old eagles while engaged in the work of spoliation. The remaining woodcutters, with the exception of the one who had been left on the top of the cliff, were placed in file along the ledge to lower and raise the plank which was to serve as my seat, and to which the rope was securely fastened after being passed through an iron ring attached to my stout leathern girdle. A signal-line was to hang at my side, and a hunting-knife, a revolver, a strong canvas bag to hold the booty, and an ashen pole iron-shod at one end and provided with a strong iron boathook at the other, completed my equipment, each article of which had undergone the strictest scrutiny before its adoption.
Taking the pole from the hands of Hansel, I let myself glide over the edge of the cliff, and the next moment hung in empty space. After being lowered about eighty feet, I found myself on a level with the crevice before mentioned, and gave the preconcerted signal for arresting my downward progress. Owing, however, to a beetling crag or boulder which overhung the recess, I was still at a distance of ten or twelve feet horizontally from the goal. Fixing the boathook into a convenient indentation of the rock, I gradually pulled myself in till I reached the face of the wall. Then leaving the plank, I crawled up an inclined slab of rock which led to the actual crevice, until I was stopped by a barrier of dry sticks about two feet in height. Raising myself on my knees, I peered into the oval-shaped eyrie, and saw perched up at the farther side two splendid young golden eagles.
"FIXING THE BOAT-HOOK INTO AN INDENTATION, I PULLED MYSELF IN."
It is a very rare occurrence to find two young eagles in one eyrie. These, though only four or five weeks old, were formidable birds, measuring considerably over six feet in the span, and displaying beaks and talons of imposing size. It took some time to capture and pinion these powerful and refractory ornithological specimens, whose loud, discordant screams caused me several times to glance involuntarily over my shoulder at the strip of horizon visible, to assure myself that the old eagles were not swooping down to the rescue. I was in the more haste to leave the eyrie that the stench which emanated from the remains of numerous victims strewn in and about it was something terrific. These relics, which I had the curiosity to count, consisted of a half-devoured carcass of a chamois, three pairs of chamois' horns and the corresponding bones of the animals, the skeleton of a goat picked clean, the remains of an Alpine hare, and the head and neck of a fawn.
ENTERING THE EYRIE