Suffice it to say, that in pursuit of a beautiful little animal--a "musk-deer"-- they had gone up a gully filled by one of those grand glaciers so common in the higher Himalayas; that the pursuit had led them far up the ravine, and afterwards conducted them into a singular crater-like valley--the one already described; that once in this valley, they could find no way out of it, but by the ravine through which they had entered; and that on returning to make their exit, they discovered to their great consternation that a crevasse in the glacier, over which they had passed, had opened during their absence, and to such an extent as to render their exit impossible! They had endeavoured to span this crevasse; and had spent much time in making a bridge of pine-trees for the purpose.

They had succeeded at length in getting across the chasm--but only to find others in the glacier below, which no ingenuity could enable them to get over.
They were compelled to abandon the idea, and return again to the valley; which, though lovely to the eye, had now become hateful to their thoughts: since they knew it to be their _prison_.
During their residence in the place, many adventures befel them with wild animals of various kinds.

There chanced to be a small herd of "yaks," or grunting oxen, in the valley; and these formed for a time the staple article of their food.

Caspar, who, though younger than Karl, was the more skilled hunter of the two, had a very narrow escape from the old yak bull; though he succeeded at length in killing the dangerous animal.

Ossaroo was very near being eaten up by a pack of wild dogs-- every one of which he afterwards succeeded in killing; and Ossaroo was also in danger of being swallowed up by an enemy of a very different kind--that is by a _quicksand_, into which he had got his legs while engaged in taking fish out of a net! Karl was not without _his_ hair-breadth "'scape"-- having been chased by a bear along a ledge of the cliff, from which he was compelled to make a most perilous descent.