Up to the very brink it looked hopeless enough, but, looking downwards when that was reached, instead of a sheer drop the slope seemed to be a wild "staircase" of rocks and icy ledges with here and there a little patch of sand on a cornice, and far below, five hundred feet or so, a good big spread of gravel an acre or two in extent close by where the river plunged out of sight into the nethermost cavern mouth.
It was so hopeless up above it, it could not possibly be worse further down, and there was the ugly black flood running into the hole to trust myself to as a last resource; so slipping and sliding I began the descent.
Had I been a schoolboy with a good breakfast ahead the incident might have been amusing enough.

The travelling was mostly done on the seat of my trousers, which consequently became caked with mud and glacial loam.

Some was accomplished on hands and knees, with now and then a bit down a snow slope, in good, honest head-over-heels fashion.

The result was a fine appetite for the next meal when it should please providence to send it, and an abrupt arrival on the bottom beach about five minutes after leaving the upper circles.
I came to behind a cluster of breast-high rocks, and before moving took a look round.

Judge then of my astonishment and delight at the second glance to perceive about a hundred yards away a brown object, looking like an ape in the half light, meandering slowly up the margin of the water towards me.