CHAPTER ONE

OITZINGER'S HOME

HALF-WAY between Tarvis and Pontebba, the tall forested slopes which form the southern margin of Val Canale are interrupted, leaving a wide gateway. This is the entrance to the most famous valley in the Western Julian Alps, the Seissera valley. Two steep bastions guard this gateway; to the east, the Luschari, with its richly wooded bluffs, the highest bearing the hamlet and pilgrimage chapel of Luschari; to the west, the peaks grouped about the Mittagskofel, whose rocky head rises clear and dominant above the gay meadows and pastures of Strekica and the sombre crests of the "Black Mountains."
As you look upward from the railway or from the valley mouth, there stands at the head of the Seissera valley, and apparently forming its background, a shape like some gleaming majestic citadel of the gods; this is the Wischberg, or Jôf Fuart, Mons Fortis. The rugged peaks of the Gamsmutter ridges form one harmony with this mountain of sunshine. The broad easternmost crest above those giant crags is Kaltwasser Gamsmutter; Innominata, the small, slim pinnacle immediately to the right, above the sparkling snow-shield high on the face of the precipice. The "Terraces of the Gods" are traced horizontally close beneath the skyline. And at the foot of this impressive picture lies the cheerful verdure of the Oitzinger meadows, and the shadowed forests on the threshold of Zapraha.
It is not until you have pressed on to the point where the Seissera valley changes its direction from south to south-west, that you can first catch sight of its true background. Every one who takes this path knows that he will soon see the Montasch. He quickens his pace in eager anticipation. And when this monstrous elephant's back comes into sight above the dark pinnacles of pine forest in the foreground-a majestic, overwhelming vision-there is no need to consult the map. Beyond all possible doubt it is the Montasch!
So, like two giant cathedrals, Wischberg and Montasch plant their foundations deep within the Seissera valley. There is nothing to match their architecture; it is of an intoxicating beauty and grandeur. The massive development of their broad flanks is a whole glorious world of cliff and tower, bastion and buttress, of riven, battlemented crests dominating the lower ground, and you must travel far to find fagades of equal splendour. They are honourable rivals even to the great Dolomite peaks to the west.
Before the northern outskirts of the Seissera gateway lies a broad, level triangle of meadow and ploughland, which provides a livelihood for the inhabitants of the village, formerly known as Wolfsbach, now called Valbruna. Here they grow clover, potatoes, and beans, cabbage and cauliflower, barley, some rye, and a small amount of maize. Here is glorious meadowland in wide lawns, or in narrow strips between cultivated ground. Since Valbruna breeds cattle, it must keep a close eye on the hay crop and aftermath. All the soil is alluvial, a deep deposit of waterworn boulder and rubble, beneath a thin layer of black fruitful earth.
The potato season here is a time of beauty, of white blossom and dark-green leaf, and every meadow, every stretch of plough, is bordered by the tall white clusters of cow-parsley. On all sides, white and green, except that here and there, as if planted by chance, is a small patch of yellow marigold. Picture the charm of this corner of earth, with its murmur of bees and the glad song of birds, when the sun sheds its radiance upon it, and white clouds spread their sails in the blue heavens. How busy and lively it is in harvest-time, when young and old hasten to ploughland and pasture, while horse-team, ox-wagon, and handcart clatter by, and all around echo the cheerful voices of the labourers; and most lovely of all, perhaps, when the aftermath is gathered, with its long, pendent strands, soft as green silk.
Three small chapels keep watch over the threshold, and every acre is blessed by toil, and filled with happiness and peace. It is as though the land smiles in friendship, and bids the passing traveller a cheerful welcome from the heart.
But close by, a few hundred paces to the east, lurks a grim, unsleeping foe. Here, in a broad white bed of rubble, the Seissera torrent flows down toward the river Fella. Neither channelled nor dammed, nor in any way harnessed, it is a savage tyrant. After a succession of fine summer days, it is crystal clear, harmless looking, scarcely kneedeep. Only its uncanny speed, hinting at the steep fall, makes one reflect. This torrent has brought much tribulation to Valbruna. It menaces, not the village itself, but the fields by which the village lives. At the melting of the snows, in the rains of spring and autumn, after each cloudburst over the mountain crests or among the high corries, this crystal-clear rivulet swells to a mighty mountain stream, to a dark, roaring monster. Yet it is not the water alone which works havoc. From the vast corrie basins and steep lateral ravines where the waters gather, cataracts of scree and boulder are rent away and borne down by the flood; the torrent bars its own accustomed course, and toiling to find some new channel of escape, it leaps with irresistible might upon the defenceless borders of cultivated ground. Already it has swept woods and meadows far down towards the Fella, swallowing up pasture and arable land. Woe betide this threshold if Government help be slow in coming! The few peasants wring their hands; they cannot help themselves. Only the mercy of Providence can save them should this savage monster rise in wrath and lift its head far beyond its bounds.
At the southern corner of the triangle, in the midst of the gateway, is the village. A few decades ago it was a poverty-stricken hamlet, threaded by a rude, narrow mountain track. The heavy shells of war-time levelled it to the foundations, and now it has risen again, gayer, cleaner, more beautiful than ever before, so that to-day it stands graceful and confident, like some spruce toy, just in the right place. As you come unexpectedly upon it from Valbruna station, or catch a distant view of it from Uggowitz, you exclaim cheerfully: "Yes, this village fits into the picture, this is the very place for it. It is the mountain village of my dreams!" And so there passes between yourself and the village a friendly greeting of Grüss Gott, a mutual joy and satisfaction. If only times were better!
In former days of rustic innocence the dunghills and manure heaps were distressingly conspicuous outside the front doors; since the war they have withdrawn with a thoughtful modesty behind the lines of houses. The bumpy village street has become a broad, well-kept motor road. Small gardens nestle against the houses, gay flowers smile at you from the windows. In the place of two meagre church bells there is now a beautiful carillon, whose festive chimes have been known to dispel hailstorm and thunder.
In 1935 Valbruna actually rose to a water. supply, where formerly one drank of the waters of the river. What more can a man want-
Were Valbruna not so named, it might be called Schwalbendorf, the Village of the Swallows. Nowhere else have I seen so many. They have their headquarters at the northern entrance to the village, where are Oitzinger's house and the Trattoria Gelbmann. Here they sit in rainy weather, huddled together in rank upon rank along the telephone wires, waiting for a beam of sunshine to dry them or for the chance of some fresh flight in search of their daily bread. In the same way one is tempted to believe that they gather for conference or for a siesta. They are a joy to all who love nature, and a mark of friendship and honour for the stable where they nest. At Valbruna they lack nothing, and everybody in the village pays due respect to these gayest and most charming of all summer visitors.

CHAPTER TWO

SCHOOLDAYS

IN this hamlet Anton Oitzinger, the hero of this modest story, was born on November 20, 1860. I have written the word hero; but let nobody think that I intend to write an epic in honour of this brave man. I have no wish to work up Oitzinger's character to heroic dimensions. Nowadays the world is unbelievably full of heroes, all sorts and conditions of them. The modern age clamours for heroes as a necessity of life. Its desire is to stand amazed, overpowered by admiration and enthusiasm. Superhuman achievement, sensationalism, dare-devilry are the masters of our times. Look at the countless magazines and illustrated papers on bookstalls, and watch the endless succession of heroes pass in word or picture. There are indeed many Among them who will take an honourable place in history, but there are also those who will hardly endure for a day, for to-morrow comes one cleverer, quicker, or more daring, one stronger or more reckless, and their fame is blotted out. Anton Oitzinger can have no place in this Vanity Fair, amid the rolling drums of advertisement and the hurly-burly of modern days.
In my obituary notice of him I wrote that an exciting novel might be made from the events of his life; that, from my knowledge of them, I was perhaps qualified to write this novel, and might one day do so.
All this may be true, but it would have been more prudent not to write those words, for I have so often been asked what has happened to this Oitzinger novel, when is it going to appear- It seems that my words were regarded as a promise; and now that I approach the task of writing this story it becomes clear to me that it can never take the form of a novel. It cannot and must not be other than a simple description of Oitzinger's life. Perhaps here and there this may cause some slight disappointment; but it will be understood how reluctant I should be to introduce into this tale even the smallest detail from my own fancy. The open paths of Oitzinger's life have no such need.
And perhaps, despite the simplicity of this record, it will be a delight for many to follow him on these paths through changing fortunes, in perils of mountain and flood and fire, in perils of brigandage and warfare, in necessity and tribulation, and feel the magic of this fearless, upright man, who strode with confidence unshaken and ever-ready humour through the troubles and adversities of life.
I have not been able to discover much about Oitzinger's childhood and boyhood; but all that I have heard confirms the fact that he was a most cheerful and enterprising boy. In those days school was a mere trifle: if you wanted to, you went; if not, you stayed away. Oitzinger went to school "a certain amount" at Uggowitz, for there was then none at Valbruna. Now it is a fairly long stretch to Uggowitz, at least half an hour's quick walking, and there were then, as now, plenty of distractions and diversions, so that this "certain amount" may well have included some truancy. However, Oitzinger was capable of writing his name, provided that you gave him time and did not worry him too much, though now and then a letter might be omitted as unimportant. Nor did Jakob Mikosch, his playmate and inseparable companion during the first period of work, make any better progress. Let us admit it frankly and cheerfully: neither of them could write. At a time when the complaint is so often heard that too much is written, perhaps one may take comfort from the thought that in those days there was an ideal system of education!

CHAPTER THREE

THE SHEPHERD BOY

SCHOOLDAYS did not last long. Like most peasants, Oitzinger went out to work at a very early age. He became a herdsman, driving the family herds of sheep and goats to their grazing, and there keeping watch over them; a responsible task, but pleasant enough. He spent summer on the pastures near the head of the valley, on the Seissera or Deutsche Alm, at the Tamer,* as the local dialect calls it. A cheesemaker was at work there in the hut, and three or four herdboys drove the herds to one or other of the pastures for the day. Often they remained high up among the corries and the upper terraces, or on the precipitous slopes in search of the enticing, emerald-green chamois ledges, and there they had to be watched and gathered together. Such was young Anton Oitzinger's happy introduction to the high mountains.
A magnificent mountain landscape encloses the

* Strictly, the central portion of the pasture, walled in or fenced.

headwaters of the Seissera. Here are some of the most impressive scenes in the julian Alps, renowned to-day for their splendid savage beauty. Here stand the PrAnik peaks, Steinerner Jäger and Schwalbenspitzen: grey, picturesque limestone forms, dappled far up their flanks with a dark-green pattern of dwarf pine; to the south near by, the sharp, naked buttresses of the Kaltwasserkarspitzen, the Three Vergini; then the haughty Gamsmutter peaks and the citadel of the Wischberg, ranged in magic semicircle about the Saifnitzer Karnica-Gilbert and Churchill's "group of giants"-whose northern precipices are to-day a magnet for the best climbers and boldest route-finders. Next comes the cleft mass of broken rock and cliff called Grosser Nabois, with the dark, repellent, shovel-like form of its lesser brother in front. Westward are the rugged eastern slopes of the lateral range towards the Mittagskofel, furrowed by steep ravines, with the broad pasture-saddle of Sorndogna and the solitary Planja, set with ancient monumental fir and larch, and breathing the enchanted magic of the heights. Above all, in the background, is the glorious barrier-wall of Montasch, and beneath it, to the east, something which in the whole Julian Alps has no rival-the gigantic corrie of the Spranje; not indeed a single corrie, but rather a whole world of connected corries, a mighty system of one main basin, and countless subsidiary hollows, lateral, hanging, or poised in the cliffs.
I have said a world of corries; but I should add, a world of sternness and grandeur, of ruin and desolation, of terror and fear. And yet for all this a world of divine mountain beauty.
Picture now the measureless heaps of rubble and boulder strewn in the base of these high ravines and corries of crumbling, weatherworn limestone, and heaped on every slope, terrace, ledge, and shelf. Then you will understand from what armoury the Seissera torrent in the time of its wrath gathers its weapons for the devastating attack upon the fruitful earth of Wolfsbach. Put from your mind all thought of blue skies and sunshine and the gentle fragrant breezes of summer; think rather of the fury and the roar of the mountain tempest, when the heavy hammer of God "cleaveth the mountains and breaketh the rock," and stonefall and landslide, loosed from their beds, thunder on their downward course, as if they were (in Oitzinger's pungent phrase) "a Polenten!"
This is the region where Oitzinger acquired his prowess as a hersdman. He delighted in the work.
There are. often long, tedious, difficult journeys to be made, for sheep go easily astray. Sometimes, in a fit of mad obstinacy, they will follow some steep, narrow snow gully far up the mountain, forget to return or miss the way, and finally get foundered. Sometimes they will cross the high ridges, descend on the far side and join strange herds, where they fancy themselves to be at home. All these scattered or truant sheep must be hunted down and brought back. But it is far worse when goats lose themselves. Remember that they can climb like chamois; imagine what an extraordinarily ticklish and awkward place it must be where a goat can neither advance nor retreat, but is left hanging helpless to the cliff. The rescue of strayed goats is one of the herdsman's most difficult and dangerous tasks, involving miracles of balance and rockcraft which never find their way into any Alpine periodical. This is the best possible climbing school. The professional chamois hunter, good as he may be on steep slopes, does not make the best rock climber; the poacher is better, for he has to work out his own secret illicit ways. Best of all is the goatherd, as my own experience tells me. It was in this school that the incomparable Trentaners, and Oitzinger likewise, learned their mastery of balance and cragsmanship.
It was during these years that Oitzinger's lifelong devotion to the mountains was born: hardly surprising, I might add with Julian pride, seeing the beauty and romance of this region. "He spent his whole time on the cliffs," said Mikosch, the playmate of his youth. Here he found his chief delight. What a picture that must have been: the agile, supple figure of the growing fifteen-year-old boy gliding from ledge to ledge, his eager brown eye ranging the solemn summits of his home mountains! How I should have loved to see it! It must have been at this time also that he began to study the chamois. His knowledge of their habits, their favourite haunts and migrations, was astounding. It was just as if he had spent his whole life stalking chamois. I should have suspected him of poaching in his youth, but this he always denied; had it been true, he would certainly have admitted it to me without hesitation, and his contemporaries have always assured me that it was not so.
At that time there were large numbers of chamois in the district. Even as late as 1887, when I began my regular visits to the Seissera mountains, I could always count on seeing forty to fifty head at the north-cast foot of the Wischberg, on the snowfields of the Saifnitzer Karnica. Once, in 1893. when I was on the northern Schwalbenspitzen with Andreas Koniac, I counted a herd of fifty-two, which passed close by, without noticing us, over the ridge on to the Kaltwasser side. There were hosts of chamois on the Gamsmutter cliffs, on the cast and north-east faces of the Wischberg, and among the terraced flanks of this peak and the Balitzen peaks above the Spranje, while in the Spranje corrie basin itself I often met isolated chamois. In pre-war days I never set foot on the Wischberg rocks from this side (and how often have I done so!) without alarming a herd. It was most entertaining to climb up into the southern corrie of the Steinerner Jäger. There they stood motionless on every pinnacle, cunningly scattered-one chamois to each turret of the semicircle-looking calmly down like policemen on duty, with a sharp eye open for intruders. And on the highest terrace of the Spranje route up the Vert Montasio, at the point where the great Brdo buttress towers up vertically, Oitzinger showed me the classic spot where the chamois, as they retreat higher and higher before the advancing climbers, suddenly realize that their way is barred both above and beyond, and, finding themselves trapped, turn in panic and race back, to the grave danger of the climbers perched on this exposed terrace above grisly depths! The ledges are narrow, and in places it is impossible to step aside, and the mad flight passes, if need be, over men's bodies. A good climber can escape upward by overcoming the big decisive step, the huge Brdo chimney on the Vert Montasio, by the jammed boulders; but chamois cannot, or perhaps will not, do so, for some reason unknown to us. And yet what man would ever dream of even remotely measuring his own climbing skill by their standard, or challenging comparison with the chamois-
In pre-war years the King of Saxony had all the shooting in the Wischberg group. The best chamois preserves were the Steinerner Jäger, the Saifnitzer Karnica, and the Weissenbach ravine on the Raibl side, where the fine royal hut stood. The king was not long in recognizing Oitzinger's outstanding personality. At first he employed him as beater, and developed a great affection for him. Finally Oitzinger became perhaps his most trusted servant in matters of hunting; clever and reliable as were the royal huntsmen, Oitzinger far surpassed them in mountain experience and knowledge of chamois. He was the best man in Wolfsbach.
"Well, Oitzinger, and how's the king-" I asked him once.
"A very pleasant-spoken gentleman," was the answer, "but I can't understand his dialect!" It is well known that the good king spoke the broadest Saxon.
One day out hunting: a fleeing chamois. The king fires.
"Oitzinger, have I got him-"
"Nein," shouted the truthful Oitzinger, "g'fahlt!"
A court official takes him aside: "Oitzinger, one must never say 'nein' to His Majesty. You should have answered, 'Ja, Majestät.' And the expression 'gefehlt' is not at all a proper one."
The hunt proceeds. A second chamois, a second miss.
"Oitzinger, got him-"
"Ja, Majestät!"
"Just run along, there's a good fellow, and fetch him for me!"
Oitzinger goes off, borrows a rifle, climbs up on the Schwarzenberg, shoots a chamois, and brings it to the king towards sunset.
"Hier, Majestdt!"
Yes, he learned the ways of the court, this Oitzinger of ours!
But the king did not remain a bad shot all his days.
Oitzinger told me later that he had become a firstclass shot, and never needed to ask whether he had brought down the chamois.
The war laid a destructive hand on the rich animal life of these regions. In addition, the annually increasing influx of tourists, the many huts built for their convenience, and the new mountain tracks have disturbed the chamois. Too many strange voices echo among their mountains and penetrate to their time-hallowed retreats. Nowadays, while crossing the Bärenlahnscharte, it is a matter of luck if you can sight a small herd here or there. The pilgrimage of mankind to the hills endangers the two great glories of nature-animal life and the beloved embroidery of flowers. This is now generally known, and though steps have long been taken to counteract the danger, much remains to be done. Let every man reflect as he enters the sacred spaces of these great cathedrals of the earth, and there conduct himself as one who stands upon holy ground, with the humble regard and reverence that befits those of true faith and fervent, heartfelt mountain-worship.
For the most part stock farming in the Seissera basin was then concerned with sheep and goats. The mountains afford ideal grazing ground for goats, sheep, and wethers*; and these are the cattle of the hills. They have always been natives of the rugged Julians, where they find all they need: sequestered corries, magnificent terraces; steep strips of turf and slopes for grazing in abundance -the famous Verdi, as they are called in the western group-with fragrant grass, short-stemmed and yet luxuriant, and an enchanting cushion flora; clear fountains of purest water, recesses and caves set in the layered rocks for shelter from the tempest and comfortable quarters by night. The thought of such things, the remembrance of their gathered charm will quicken the mountain lover's heart, whether he shares the shepherd's anxieties or not. A successful ascent, or conscious pride in some hold achievement, are not indispensable for our joy. Surely in such landscapes also lie treasures of great price, to enrich the days of a mountaineer's life.
There were times when every prosperous -peasant of Wolfsbach had his hundred sheep and goats among the cliffs, and a. thousand, often twelve hundred, head grazed on the high ground. Oitzinger's father owned a hundred sheep; so did Kandutsch, my old trusted porter and guide to the best bivouac sites in these mountains; a sturdy taciturn man with an

* Called Kastrein or Kastrun, with the second syllable accented.

extraordinary knowledge of chamois. How often have I met him or his simpleton brother keeping watch over the flocks; and how often have the long-drawn cries of shepherds risen to me from the silent solitudes of the upland corries while I was rejoicing in the splendour above. These cries do not vex the silence like the desolate shouting of latter-day tourists. They are as the voice of Nature in the mountains, falling upon the ear like the sighing of the wind or the rush of a waterfall. The chamois hearken for one brief moment and quietly continue their grazing. It is the peace of the high places.
Cattle breeding proper only began to develop much later, when the forest administration had declared war on the goats. In the days when Oitzinger was herdsman there was hardly a cow in Wolfsbach. Sheep and goats, as we have seen, graze high, even on the steepest slopes; cows need level ground, and even in those days there were few level, stone-free places left. To-day there are far fewer, for the desolation and silting of the valley have continued. Some meagre pasturage just south of the village; the beautiful meadows of the Deutsche Alm, framed in primeval pine trees beneath the overwhelming majesty of Montasch; the steep Strekica Alp on the northern flank of the Mittagskofel, these were all that one could offer to the cows. A remote level patch of fine pasture ground at the head of the Seissera, against the Montasch cliffs, where a generous spring gushes forth, and a few places on the Planja, served and still serve to nourish oxen and calves; and there are some scanty stretches of turf in the bed of the lower Spranje, which have escaped the torrents of scree. In the green clearing at this point was formerly the tiny hunter's hut belonging to Count Arco-a plank roof above the boulder walls, an open fireplace, a wooden bunk; now only a few remnants of mouldering planks and beams tell the tale. You pass by unheeding. And yet there lingers here a fragment of Spranje history-and of mine too, but how many years ago!
It is a joy to us mountain lovers to encounter a herd of sheep or goats grazing alone on some remote height. Delightful as the picture may be, it palls when these creatures, hungering after bread or salt, throng us too impetuously and can scarcely be driven off. It may change to something very different when one or two goats, or perhaps a whole bevy of them, take it into their heads to follow our upward way or escort us down to the valley. Remonstrance, clear and definite orders, cunning or threats or violence, all are unavailing. They insist on coming! And it may be that, willy-nilly, you find yourself entering the village, with embarrassment on every feature, as a popularly elected goatherd; and small thanks you will get here for this unsolicited triumph.

The forester hates sheep and goats. To him they are the most destructive enemy of the forest. The goat especially, being modest in its demands, and not nice in diet, can adapt itself to the simplest housekeeping. With its cleverness and extraordinary gift for climbing, it gets far up the sapling, nips off the tender shoots, and attacks even the highest branches. The struggling tree has neither power nor time to develop. In goat-breeding valleys who has not seen the stunted sugar-loaf to which these creatures will reduce the pine in the neighbourhood of their pasture- Within these poor, helpless, closely matted sugar-loaves there mourns the soul of many a tree grown old in suffering, doomed by a cruel fate to a cripple's existence. Hence, wherever a proper forest supervision is established, at once begins the fight against sheep, goats, and grazing rights: an age-long struggle, often conducted with great bitterness, which can seldom be fought to a finish.
But the forest has a worse enemy than these in man; and again, one more dangerous still. This is the torrent, with its devastating accompaniment of boulder and silt. Once more it is man who opens the flood-gates for the waters and cuts the breach for their inroad. In former times there must have been a far finer mountain forest in the Spranje than now survives. Beneath the gigantic gully of Huda Palica, called Tratca,* is a broad green bastion, now long since stripped by the axe; from here the peasants of Friuli fetched the close-knit timber which served for their home industry of kitchen furniture. It is said that in the shelter of the forest, deep within the outer basin of the Spranje, there was once plenty of rich grazing land, where the fierce inhabitants of the Dogna ravine, passing over the Somdogna saddle, had built a chalet on the pasture and established a herdsman; but the bellicose Wolfsbachers raised the liveliest objections, and decapitated the intruder without further ado. Up to 1870-that is, to the days of Oitzinger's youth, there were still splendid pine forests standing, from the southern village border far up into the Seissera. The shinglebed of the Seissera torrent was then much narrower,

* Pronounced Trat-tsa, an abbreviation of the Wendish word trata, for open space or clearing in the forest.

for the forest held its savage neighbour in control. During the seventies there was much timber felling by order of the reigning authority; a whole year's work for eight men, and the felled timber was sold for much money. Now in mountain lands, once the guardian walls of forest have fallen, the torrent and its dreadful allies usurp the power. From that moment the torrent-bed enlarged its borders. To-day the Spranje is almost entirely spread with shingle and scree; never has such rending and desolation come upon the Seissera, valley as in these latter years. The broad tongues of silt lick their way everywhere, smothering the young growth. The green of pasture land yields to the glaring white of rubble. To-day the forest suffers, to-morrow the pasture land, and with it the cattle, in relentless, horrible succession.
"Before, there were plenty of goats and plenty of forest. Now the goats have gone-but then so has the forest." Such is the logical comment of the peasant. But we know better; there is a fallacy in this logic.
Now that afforestation has begun, however, the forests of Seissera and Spranje may rise again in their glory of old. Unfortunately, one thing is certain: we shall not be there to see it.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE WOODMAN

OITZINGER was seventeen years old when he left home and meadowland and took up the woodman's craft. Let us accompany him from the pastures and cliffis of the Western julians, first to the mountain forests of the Lessach valley at the head of the Gail basin in Carinthia. Jakob Mikosch, his inseparable friend, three years his senior, is with him. "Wo ander g'wesen is, war der zweite a!" A formidable couple: tall, sunburnt fellows, brimful of energy and high spirits, they must have made the splinters fly! We townbirds, whose task in life is, alas, so far removed from forests and timber felling, are wont to spin a web of forest magic, of poetry and romance, over the woodman's calling. But it is in fact a life of heavy, anxious toil, a life full of privation and danger. The trunks of the high forest must first be hewn down, stripped of branch and bark, and then dispatched. If the felling ground lies high, wooden timber-chutes are built, artificial gullies shaped out of tree-trunks, by which the timber travels downhill. Three or four boles form the base of the chute, and the edges are bent sharply upward to prevent the possibility of the trunks leaping out of their course. Where the fall is slight, the chute is kept smooth and slippery by water; if the angle be very steep, a sprinkling of earth or gravel is used, or excess of speed or bumping may lead to somersaults and fracture, or endanger the chute itself. In these chutes the trunks slip down with lightning speed. They are paths of danger and destruction, like some ill-famed couloir in the high mountains, or, more strictly, like the sinister furrow in every avalanche-gully, which marks the favourite path of falling stones and avalanches. Stonefall and avalanche are here represented by the downward rush of tree-trunks. Woe to the unfortunate man whom they encounter on their course! There is no escape for him.
Communication between. entrance and exit of the chute is by shouting. Where the distance is too great for the voice to carry, watchmen are posted at intervals, who pass the word of command uphill or downhill from mouth to mouth. Sometimes in the course of his career (though only later, when he was in Galicia) Oitzinger worked at chutes which required eleven or twelve intermediate stations. This is an exceedingly responsible task. You cannot sleep at your post; alert and vigilant as a sentinel, you must watch, listen, and transmit the message. Presence of mind and quick decision are often needed. The safety of human life is at stake, and the smallest negligence may have the most terrible sequel.
"Kar-gà!" is the first call borne upward from below through the freshness of the forest dawn. "Kaar-gàaa!" the long-drawn cry passes from post to post. This means "load up," or in the woodman's jargon, Schmeiss aber! The two syllables are of Italian origin-carica: in the speech and dialect of Friuli-cariga. The clear, vocal richness of the Italian tongue renders it suitable for these words of command.
Immediately afterwards "Var-dè!" rings down, "Vaar-dèee" through the line of watchmen to the valley. This means "look out," and is also of Italian origin: guardate-in dialect Guarè, Varde- be on the watch!"
Then the wild rush begins through the silent forest. A sound of groaning, and the trunk slides gently away from above; a brief moment of furious crescendo, an echo of thunder near by, swiftly hushed, and then a dull sound of impact from far below.
When the work of loading ceases, the upward call is "Hob-auf!" That is to say, "all finished"; whereupon follows confirmation from above-"Wohi!" "All clear."
These calls have an almost international currency they are known and understood everywhere in the mountain valleys of the south. Only after the final cry, "Wo-hi!" is it safe to enter the timber-chute, if there are obstructions to be removed or repairs necessary.
Such is the working of the timber-chute, and so it goes on trunk by trunk, day in and day out, often the whole night long. At this season bird-song is silenced, the beasts of the forest depart. Strange, alarming cries fill the woods. When all is finished, the work of demolition begins from the top. The chute swallows up its own length, and beside it the stripped clearings stand desolate and forlorn. But with a speed almost surpassing belief-between this day and the morrow, one might almost say, if one weighs human toil in the healing balance of Nature-new vegetation enters into possession, as if, in response to some primeval law, it had long been awaiting this moment near by, and now were summoned hither at the bidding of the lord of the forest.
This, then, was Oitzinger's weekday labour as woodman: heavy work the whole week, and no distractions. But on Saturday, at six in the evening, he would knock off work, put on smarter clothes, and race down with Mikosch into the valley to St. Jakob or Birnbaum. And the six-and-thirty hours following were one huge riot of fun. I doubt if he slept a wink then; the whole time was one round of merriment, and they lent a hand in every Lumperei, where these two lusty fellows must have achieved miracles. To this day, when old Mikosch speaks to me of those times, his eye kindles. From inn to inn the two inseparables went with toasting, song, dance, card-playing, and a certain amount of quarrelling, for they stood in awe of nobody. Oitzinger never spoke to me about amorous adventures, and rightly so; a man may have had many experiences, but there is no need to relate them. Only once did old Mikosch casually remark to me: "Madeln hab'n mer g'habt gnua!" This gave me food for thought, but naturally I asked no more.
Early on Monday morning, at 4 a.m. in summer, they were back again at their felling, changed and ready for work. There was never a day's idling or truancy. Where duty called, both friends were punctually at their posts.
Leaving the Lessach valley, they went on to Dellach, near Oberdrauburg in the valley of the rave. Here they worked a whole year at the charcoal furnaces, with a daily wage of eighty kreuzer. Living, however, was cheap in those days, forty kreuzer for a litre of wine, and polenta the staple dish. Here again was the same round of gaiety on Sundays and festivals, and there was always money enough in their pockets. Yes, those were famous times, days and nights of uproarious song and festivity!
From Dellach the two friends moved off to Admont in Upper Styria, back to woodcraft and timberchutes. Here grave misfortune befell Mikosch. He was busy with repairs in the chute when tree-trunks swept down upon him. He got away with his life, but with one leg so severely damaged that for two years he was unable to work. This meant separation. Mikosch always remained loyal to the companion of his youth, and kept in constant touch with him, but they worked together no more, and to this day Mikosch limps as a result of his accident. It was not until many years later, when both had settled down on their properties in Wolfsbach, that life brought them together again and renewed the old firm friendship between these two good, understanding neighbours.
For two years Oitzinger remained in Admont; then fresh employment took him to Galicia, where he worked in two ravines called (if my memory is correct) Skola and Vigoda. Here he had another two years of felling and lumber work. When Oitzinger was employed in the neighbourhood of Wolfsbach he paid one visit annually to his home, and from Admont he came once for a week at Christmas, though it appears that these visits were devoted less to rest and recovery than to seeing life and Auslumpen, as Mikosch expressively phrased it. From Galicia, however, the distance was too great for a visit.

CHAPTER FIVE

SAWYER IN BULGARIA. AMONG THIEVES

OITZINGER was twenty-four years old when his destiny led him to Bulgaria, and with this journey there begins a strange, stimulating, adventurous epoch of his life which was to cast its spell in some measure over all his future days. The foundations of his later prosperity were then laid, but at the cost of fear and danger, and of unwelcome memories from which, notwithstanding his iron nerve and resilience, he could never shake himself free.
The scene of this epoch is the Bulgarian forest-region of the eighties: marvellous, primeval woods of spruce, fir, stone pine, and beech; deep ravines with echoing cascades, and water-mills toiling in the valleys. There was much animal life in the forest, including wolves and bears; in severe weather the wolves would come by night to the steadings where the sheep lay close-penned. On the first night the wolves merely "sang," so Oitzinger told me; on the second night they broke in and devoured as many sheep as they could. There was scarcely any means of defence; watchdogs were useless. Here and there are beautiful green clearings, such as often figured in Oitzinger's tales, the famous Traten of his dialect; dense, sombre forests, and those enchanting borders beside the open pasturage, where the trees themselves seem to have put forth peculiar strength, that the Divine Architect may build the forest walls with a craftsman's freedom in the richest splendour of design; where the forest itself stands in all its bewitching splendour and bids one enter.
But there was danger in the forest, something far worse than the savagery of wolf or the bear's strength. There were robbers and robber gangs. A man is seen hurrying across an open space, down one of these Traten, panic and the fear of death upon his face. What is afoot- A shot rings out from the upper margin of forest and the man stumbles and falls. Is it an act of vengeance- Is he the victim of robbery- The echo dies away, a human life is ended. And there were far worse things to reckon with in those forests. There were kidnappings too, and if the required ransom were not forthcoming, the unfortunate captive had his head chopped off.
Oitzinger had taken service with a rich man from Philippopolis who owned a number of sawmills. At first he entered one of these in the depths of the forest as assistant; then he was joined by a man from Carniola, from whom he learnt the sawyer's craft, and finally he was himself promoted master-sawyer. One or two men were allotted to him, and with these he had to do the whole work, including timber felling and delivery to the mill, which was never idle. He spent five successive years in this position; good enough money to be earned, but not a day passed in safety.
Oitzinger was soon visited in his sawmill by the robbers. They came noiselessly and unexpectedly, in a body; on one occasion he counted as many as twenty-four men. Their first concern was for his provisions, and he was forced to hand over what they required. However, they often left him enough to last for a few days, especially if their chieftain were present to keep his men in order. If, as often happened, single robbers or gangs of them wished to clear the board, he would say, "Look here, I shan't have anything to eat!" And then they would hand something back. The robbers treated him well, and never threatened him; but it was like walking on the edge of a razor, and for all their favour he would tremble when they came, above all if their chieftain were not with them. Such was his terror that often he slept, not in bed, but on the planks stacked in front of the mill. Those were troubled times; long years of anxiety!
There were three robber gangs in those forests. Now one, now another would visit the mill. Each gang had its chieftain, all of whom were known to Oitzinger. It was a relief to him when the chieftains were in charge of their gangs, for their strict discipline restrained the worst instincts of the members. But Oitzinger spoke always of the same chieftain: one Kotzi Tzigarin, the mightiest, most dreaded, most inhuman of them all. A massive giant of extraordinary strength, with monstrous head and piercing, sinister glance, he was never seen to laugh. The ends of his moustache, plaited into pigtails, were so long that he wore them tucked over his ears. A terrible vision indeed; enough to ruin any night's rest. To the end of his days Oitzinger shuddered at the sound of his name, and the fear and the horror of it would overcome him as he spoke.
If the gang needed anything, were it provisions, clothing, weapons, or ammunition, they handed Oitzinger a card with a message stating their demands on his master. The latter always carried out the order with the utmost promptitude; had he failed to do so they would at once have set fire to the saw-mill, or worse might have happened. it would have been a simple matter for the robbers to kidnap him, and then hold him to heavy ransom, or even murder him, and he chose the lesser evil. Hence he was held in some favour and respect by the gang, and if he paid a visit to the sawmill, as happened frequentlyy he could be sure that not a finger would be laid on him. Whether he travelled to and from the mill with a song on his lips is another question, to which Oitzinger would certainly have answered no. An air of densest gloom and a sense of uneasy foreboding filled the whole air. and fear and terror haunted the land.
When the consignments arrived, their delivery was arranged through the medium of an aged crone. She would first strike three times on a tree-trunk in an agreed manner, and then immediately chanted "ein Liedl". Thereupon the robbers emerged from their hiding-place and found out where the goods might be collected in safety. There was the devil to pay if everything did not exactly tally.
Oitzinger found himself in a peculiarly ticklish and dangerous situation each time the Bulgarian police visited the sawmill during a round-up of brigands. Their patrols were often ten or twelve strong. Oitzinger had then not merely to weigh each word with the utmost care, but also to exercise every discretion in manner and gesture, or the robbers might have suspected that he meant to lodge information or betray them. He dared never say that the robbers had been there, or give any sort of hint about them. The slightest suspicion would have cost him his head. His quick wits and presence of mind saved him from ever committing himself, and with a combination of luck and skill he managed always to follow the path of safety.
About an hour farther up the valley lay another sawmill. Its master was an Italian, and with him was his son, a young boy. One day Kotzi Tzigarin's gang camped close by in the forest, and the sawyer knew this. During the night a strong police patrol arrived at the mill, and the men said that they were going to hunt roe-deer early next morning. The sawyer was panic-stricken; he was in a state of the most painful embarrassment, for he dared say nothing. He saw clearly that if the hunt took place, there was bound to be a clash; grave suspicion would fall upon him, and a terrible punishment. He tried to dissuade the police from their hunt. "Stay here," he said to them, "the deer have all gone." However, they set out; there was a fight, the robbers firing downhill, the police upward, with casualties on both sides. Realizing his own peril, the Italian came running down to Oitzinger, pale, haggard, trembling. "Toni, what will happen to me if the robbers come! I am innocent, I haven't betrayed them, but they will never believe me I I'm a dead man."
Three days later they came and took him off, him and his son. They were led away with a rope round their necks. Protests were useless; the robbers pulled at the rope and throttled them till their tongues hung out. Each time they stumbled they were dragged up again. So they came to one of the Traten, where a few trunks were lying. They were thrown across them and their heads hewn off, first the son's, then the father's.
One more scene of horror. At that time there were prosperous shepherds in Bulgaria, men who had do permanent abode, neither house nor other property, who spent a nomad life with their herds of sheep and goats; some of these owned as many as four to six thousand sheep. During the summer they lived on the upper pastures and in the forests, descending to sea-level in winter. One of these master-shepherds, whose flocks numbered six thousand head, received a demand from Kotzi Tzigarin for arms and ammunition. Not merely did he disregard the order; he decided in an unhappy moment to inform the police, furnishing all evidence whereby they could lay hands on the robbers. Soldiers were called out, and there followed a well-planned ambush and an exceedingly bloody battle. Many of the robbers were shot, and Kotzi Tzigarin's band almost broken up. Some time afterwards the robber sent a grim message to the shepherd: his gang was now Stronger than ever, and they would not forget the act of treachery! The shepherd's blood ran cold; at once he had his flocks driven off, and fled from the neighbourhood. For three years he stayed far away, then, thinking that the incident was forgotten, he returned. If only he had not done so! On the very first day he was seized and dragged into the forest. Here a stack of wood had been piled up, and on to this they threw him, bound and trussed; then they set fire to the stack. As the mad cries of the victim filled the forest, the funeral pyre was drenched with smoking tallow, and the flames rose yet higher, while the robbers stood round and laughed.
Oitzinger was full of such blood-curdling tales. The robbers told him everything, unless Kotzi Tzigarin were present. His iron discipline, cruel and merciless even towards his own men, would never tolerate gossip or confidences.
In later years when Oitzinger and I, now firm friends, travelled together in the mountains, he would tell me these tales after the day's work was done, in the gleam of our camp-fire. Those dark, terrible memories haunted him. He was always recalling them with every grim detail, painting them in fantastic colours, at epic length, in his own vivid, dramatic style, his tone now quivering with the excitement and thrill of anxious days from a distant past, now softened and transformed by his inexhaustible humour. Often he would make my hair stand on end. "Ja, mei Liaber!"
Nevertheless, Kotzi Tzigarin appears to have had a certain confidence in Oitzinger. He treated him in a manner which might be called upright, almost benevolent. Certainly he never behaved badly towards him. If he were present when his men visited the sawmill, Oitzinger was never robbed of his whole stock of provisions; he was always allowed half. The intelligence of our friend, his quick understanding and straightforward loyalty, made their impression even upon this terrible man.
But other dangers also beset Oitzinger. At one time his fellow at the mill was a workman who grudged him his position, and who would gladly himself have taken first place. Difficulties arose, and Oitzinger was quick to Mark that he must be on his guard. One day they had a violent quarrel, and when Oitzinger lay down for the night his instinct warned him not to fall asleep. It was lucky that he remained awake; for in the middle of the night his companion came creeping into Oitzinger's room and up to his bed with a naked axe in his hand. In a flash Oitzinger was out of bed and at the murderer's throat. With his great strength he overpowered him quickly, disarmed him, and gave him a sound beating. It was touch and go: one or the other of them, life or death! There was no sleep for Oitzinger that night. Next morning he settled his account with the traitor and threw him out of the mill.
In the end Kotzi Tzigarin fell by treachery. The old crone who acted as intermediary for the gang had been won over by bribery, and the gendarmes silently surrounded his camp. Then the traitress struck a tree three times with her hammer in the appointed manner and chanted her Liedl. Perhaps her voice may have trembled somewhat as she sang. The robbers came out of their lair, suspecting nothing. Kotzi Tzigarin stepped forward. A salvo rang out, and a bullet in the head laid him low. He fell so that a tree-trunk supported his body. Snatching out his revolver he fired on the soldiers, and killed two of them before succumbing to his wound. The gang was broken up; a few robbers escaped, but many were killed. Their heads were exposed in the market-place at Philippopolis; and among them was the giant head of their chieftain, his plaited moustache over his ears.
Oitzinger would always tell me this with satisfaction and a genuine relief, and he never forgot to add the weight of Kotzi Tzigarin's head. He called it twelve Oka,* I believe, but I cannot now exactly remember the figure. As, however, I wish to be an accurate historian, I have lately consulted my friend Frau Oitzinger, on the chance that her memory might be better. The answer was more characteristic than exact: "Oh, it was a terribly heavy head. The fact is, Herr Doktor, I can't really say how many Oka-terribly heavy it was!" The figures given by his sons and friends varied between nine and fourteen Oka. Whatever the figure given, it left me always with the impression that here was something extraordinary and quite unprecedented.

* A Turkish weight, the equivalent of nearly three pounds.

After five years of incessant strain and anxiety, Oitzinger was a tired man. His experiences were well qualified to undermine the vigorr of the strongest. He was longing for rest, and the peace of an ordered life in the healing air of his homeland. His master was most reluctant to let him go, for he had conducted the sawmill in exemplary fashion. He might just go home, his master said, but must certainly come back; and so he would not pay him his whole earnings, but would keep back part of them for a later time. Oitzinger agreed, for he was in a hurry and wanted to settle things quickly and easily. So he received part of the money in cash on his departure, and part by an order on a bank in Philippopolis. And here, as he departs from Bulgaria, we see Oitzinger at the height of his powers; there can be no better illustration of his buoyancy of spirit, his astuteness and vigour, than the manner of his going.
Oitzinger went down to Philippopolis. He cashed the order at the bank, and when he was in the street once more a stranger attached himself to him. Oitzinger asked him where he could obtain a night's lodging, and the man offered his services as guide. When they arrived at the house, Oitzinger was indignant. It looked suspicious to him. "This isn't a proper house," he exclaimed; "it's a hovel!"
"Perhaps you're afraid," said the man scornfully.
"Not a bit!" was the proud answer, and Oitzinger followed him in.
The landlord appeared-a morose, unprepossessing man. and conducted him to a room. He had asked for a bed, but here were two, and in one of them there was already another guest, apparently fast asleep. Oitzinger was taken aback, but realized that he could not well retreat now, and had better make the best of it. "I'll keep a sharp look-out," he reflected to himself. The landlord disappeared, and then Oitzinger's keen eye detected that the sleeper was watching him from behind half-closed lids, following his every movement. In a flash he realized that he had stepped into a robbers' den. There was imminent danger. He was wearing a well-filled money-belt containing all his savings, his whole earnings, several thousand gulden, with which he planned to build his future at home. With great presence of mind he sat down on the edge of his bed, sighed deeply, and pretended to be sunk in gloomy meditation. Then he drew his tattered purse from his trouser pocket and counted the few coins inside, saying softly to himself in Bulgarian, that his companion might hear: "Well, there's enough here for bed and breakfast to-morrow; and then I shall get some job, so help me God!! Thereupon he threw off his clothes casually, as if they contained nothing of value, said a short prayer, lay down, and pretended to go straight off to sleep. But he never closed an eyelid; the whole interminable night he listened anxiously for the slightest sound in the house, keeping an incessant watch on his repulsive fellow-guest and firmly grasping his knife.
Dawn came at length, but he remained lying quietly until he heard movement and noises in the street. Then he got up (it was still early) and dressed. The clear light of day gave him fresh courage, and he acted rashly: he brought out his body-belt with its wallet, and put into it the money which he had obtained from the bank.
His companion saw this. Leaping out of bed, he rushed to the door and whisked out.
"Here, what's up- Where are you off to-" Oitzinger shouted. No answer. In acute anxiety he gathered up his belongings and went after him down the stairs. And at the same time he talked to himself, as his habit was, with a fearsome warning for any who might catch his words: "Here's my knife. If anybody comes and lays hands on me, it's all up with him!" Every moment he expected some one to spring on him. He was wearing light shoes, and in the dark passage below he came noiselessly to a half-open door. Voices within, a rapid conversation.
The landlord: "Why didn't you tell me earlier- Now it's too late!" And then his formidable companion: "I only noticed it just now. There's still time. Let's be quick!"
Without a sound Oitzinger ran on to the ground floor. The front door was open and he slipped out. The street was alive with people and the bustle and hum of traffic. Safety and freedom at last! And his night's lodging went unpaid.

CHAPTER SIX

HOME AGAIN

WHEN Oitzinger returned home his father and mother were living at No. 18, at the back of the village towards the meadows, where to this day the ancestral wild pear tree stands. With the money earned he bought No. 25, which is still the family house, and enlarged it; up to that time there was only the ground floor. In the spring of 1893, after Easter, he married Agnes Bartalot, whose dowry was No. 46. It was a very happy marriage. Four sons were born to them between 1894 and 1908Valentin, Ignaz, johann, and Anton-and one daughter who died in infancy.
During the first winter he worked as woodman for old Gelbmann, father of the present innkeeper. Then he beoan to deal in sheep and goats. His journeys took him through Carniola, Carinthia, and Styria, where he bought up sheep and Kastrein, brought them to the upper pastures of the Seissera, and sold them at the autumn fairs to peasants and dealers. Sometimes they were smuggled across the frontier. The animals were seldom penned, but usually grazed among the cliffs. In this way he earned a good deal. On one occasion thirteen of his sheep perished from taking saltpetre in mistake for borax; and the Tarvis merchant, who was responsible, had to foot the bill. When he became more prosperous he.also undertook big deliveries of timber by oxen-haulage from the Scissera for the sawmill to Saifnitz or the railway station; profitable tasks which sometimes continued throughout the long winter. Both man and beast suffered grievously at times from the extreme cold and snowbound or ice-covered roads. It is peculiarly gruelling and exhausting labour which demands the utmost powers of endurance, and I remember one particularly severe post-war winter when Oitzinger was hard put to it to carry out an undertaking on a specially large scale. He began his career as guide during these first years, a career for which he had exceptional qualifications. I believe that one of his earliest Herren was Professor Adolf Gstirner, to whose great exhaustive work on the Western Julians every credit is due, and that in some measure he "discovered" Oitzinger as a guide. Certainly it was from Professor Gstirner that I first heard Oitzinger's name. He was taken as beater on chamois hunts; the right man in the right place here, as we already know. As a farmer, Oitzinger displayed from the very outset a genius for management. With the tireless support of his wife Agnes, who was a model of thrift, he worked on sure, skilful, methodical lines; his vigilance, ability, and clearheaded industry, intent always upon advancement and success, were rewarded by ever-increasing prosperity. And best of all was his marvellous joy in life, his golden gift of humour.
With all the simplicity and thrift of his household there was never any skimping. He knew how to live, but wished also to share life's benefits with others. He knew that good work demands good cheer at times, and acted accordingly. He loved entertaining. There was no cheeseparing then; he gave what he had open-handedly and with all his heart. The older he became the more he grew in kind-heartedness, generosity, and nobility. If he could help, he did so gladly and spontaneously. Were any man in need, he was ready with assistance, whether in kind or in money. If he happened to be short of cash, he would go off and borrow some to give away. I noticed, however, that he almost always had ready money in his pocket, especially in later years. If any one in Wolfsbach had land to sell he went first of all to Oitzinger, who took what suited his need and paid for it cash down. Finally he became one of the largest landowners in the village, with twenty head of cattle in his stable.
Do not imagine that Oitzinger escaped the buffetings of life. His courage was often tried, but he was always equal to the test. The year 1897 was a black time for him. Fire broke out with a sudden intensity in the middle of the night, when everybody was asleep. It was September 8th, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, and the whole harvest had been gathered, except for potatoes and maize. The garners were full of the blessing of field, ploughland, and meadow. At 10 p.m. Frau Oitzinger's small boys were asleep, and she looked out of the window towards the church tower and said her prayers. It was all so calm and peaceful, the quiet of holiday lay over the village, and only the wind struck softly upon the panes. Half an hour before midnight she was roused by a confused crackling and roaring. She rushed to the window: the whole place was in flames! The fire had broken out in the tobacco shop; the wind had risen, and was now driving the fire towards her from the direction of the church. The tinny bells of the village church were ringing with the fury of despair. Flames leapt high, lashed by the wind; the heat was intense. The night glowed red with flickering lights and dancing shadows; it was alive with noises, footsteps hurrying to and fro, the crash of falling roofs, the bellowing of frightened beasts, shouts of hü and hott, agitated hoarse commands, weeping children, howling dogs, calls for help, and cries of anguish. Even to this day the good Frau Oitzinger trembles in every limb as she speaks of that night of horror. In one midnight hour of flame forty houses were destroyed, the whole village from the church to its northern exit. So sudden was the disaster, so fierce its onslaught, that many of the inhabitants hardly escaped with their lives.
Oitzinger was in the house, fighting courageously to save home and family. His cattle were rescued, but little besides, for the children claimed his whole attention. Everything else went up in flame-everything. Men had come running over from neighbouring villages; but in many instances their help was confined to the removal of hidden objects, which vanished beyond recall. That very day Oitzinger had sold an ox, and the money was in his wallet. To work more easily he had thrown his coat, containing the wallet, into a maize field close by, where he fancied it safely hidden. He found the coat again, but not a trace of wallet or money! Both his houses, Nos. 25 and 46, were burnt to the ground; only No. 25 was insured, at a figure far too low, a mere thousand gulden. The result was a setback for many years. Jakob Mikosch, who was then working in Bavaria, lost everything, and his family was reduced almost to beggary. It was indeed a sad time for Wolfsbach!
Oitzinger was quick to recover from this disaster. Brave as ever, he was the master of his fate. Both houses were rapidly rebuilt, No. 25 for the second time since his return from Bulgaria. Then, trusting in God's help and in his own powers, he took up the burden of life again.
***
About this time another mishap befel him; and this led to our personal acquaintance. I was with my Trentaner Andreas Komac in the Saifnitzer Karnica, when we were surprised by a succession of storms passing over the Wischberg. They broke with a terrifying uproar of thunder and lightning, accompanied by such torrential rain that we were forced to flee for refuge beneath a huge overhanging boulder. Here we spent a miserable night in sorry shelter beside a meagre fire. Towards morning the weather cleared unexpectedly, and we were able to continue our journey across the Grosse Naboisscharte on to the north-western terraces of the Wischberg. Not far from the spot where a number of delicious springs well up out of moss-grown rock, a landslide during this tempestuous night had overwhelmed a herd of sheep. Many of the unfortunate beasts were dead, others lay yet alive with broken legs or worse wounds, beneath the weight of fallen boulders, bleating piteously. Only a few had got away, and were now grazing near by. A harrowing, heart-rending sight, a real tragedy of the high mountains! It was an embarrassing situation for us, and we were at a loss to know what to do. Andreas thought we should kill the animals, as they were beyond rescue. I could not bring myself to this, and, besides, I felt that I had no such authority. For a time we did everything in our power to relieve the fate of the victims, and then hurried down to notify the owner of the herd. The owner was Oitzinger. He said little, but went straight up to the scene of disaster.
The man had made an extraordinarily favourable impression upon me. I was then in need of a guide. Andreas Koniac was rarely available, his duties as huntsman keeping him in the Trenta valley. Joze Komac, that mighty daredevil, was still with me, and now and then I reinforced him with one of the splendid Trenta cragsmen, sometimes, I admit, the most notorious poachers of that valley. Osvaldo Pesamosca of Piani in Val Raccolana, who had already turned up once for a short but most promising engagement, was still a wanderer, and seldom at home. Consequently I took Oitzinger, first on some smaller expeditions, where I soon had occasion to appreciate his quality. He was quick to establish his position. His frank simplicity of character, his charming originality, his lively sense of humour, his constant willingness, and marvellous rockcraft endeared him to me more and more. As it was my principle never to undertake severe expeditions without two guides of equal merit, I decided to engage him definitely as companion with Joze Koniac. It was a most happy choice; from the moment when Oitzinger began to accompany me, there was always sunshine, even on the worst of days!
When Pesamosca later returned home, it was fitting that he should take Joze's place, for at that time I had transferred my affections to the Western Julians. Moiltasch, Wischberg, and Kanin were the centre of my interest: Montasch had taken the place of Triglav, Nevèa that of Trenta, the happy valley of my youth and now once more of my old age. He was always on the spot whenever one needed him. The two men were admirably suited in harness, each being the complement of the other. Oitzinger knew the nearer, Pesamosca the farther flank of these mountains, and they soon became fast friends.
I have here mentioned my four great paladins in the exploration of the Julian Alps, covering almost half a century. None of the four bore any resemblance to his fellows; each had his own individuality and was fundamentally different from the rest. And yet all four form one victorious group of unrivalled helpers, united in their labours and their successes by loyalty to their master.
Andreas was not, strictly speaking, a guide. I have always pictured him rather as a messenger sent to me by the mountains, like one who came on a mission, as if at the bidding of higher powers, to summon me and lead me upward. The splendour of an almost mythical romance encompassed him. He was for me something which cannot be recaptured, which can only be regarded as a unique gift from some benevolent spirit. It was as if he had stepped quietly into my life from the world of Julian fable and legend, and then, his mission fulfilled, had silently withdrawn. With the passing of time this feeling is intensified as his beloved memory comes back to me across the horizon of years. About this faithful, taciturn, monosyllabic man there rested always a magical charm which can hardly be put in words. In every aspect, from the beginning to his early death, he was and will always be for me the incomparable friend.
Joze Komac was from the upper Trenta: a typical son of this sequestered valley, and a genuine hillman from the coast province of old days. Bold and handsome, his fearless eye scanning the great depths and distances unmoved; impetuous and often rough in manner, he could at times be a thruster of almost sinister determination. He is the only survivor of the four. In former days he had all the unbridled passion of the hunter; he is now an old man, yet erect and unbowed, cloistered with his sheep in the shadows of a scanty, hard-won livelihood deep within the solitudes of the upper Trenta valley.
Then there was Osvaldo Pesamosca, of the race of Louf, with dark, sombre countenance seldom stirred by the flicker of a smile; a restless Wandering Jew of the mountains, tall and broad-shouldered, once haggard and lean, then grown gnarled as the stem of some high mountain larch rooted to the steep hillside; of iron physical strength, and iron resistance to storm and cold. If you encountered him in his own valley you felt almost that he had just sprung full-grown from the ravines of his homeland mountain, the mysterious Kanin that dwells in loneliness. Yet his was a gentle spirit, a noble and generous heart, his whole being endowed with all the fine qualities peculiar to the distinguished race of his native Friuli. Toil, care, misery were his portion in life, and he died in poverty. Let me thank him here once more for his touching affection and loyalty. May he rest in peace!
Last comes Oitzinger, the gay, laughter-loving Carinthian of ready wit and humour; mercurial, high-spirited, and quick-tongued, following truth and justice, a proud and stubborn enemy, but a loyal friend; gentle and generous to others, himself attaining a well-earned prosperity. A man of clear thought and transparent courage; dark-eyed and sunburnt, a tall, slim, supple figure of easy gait and long stride. A shout greets him as he appears, and all hands are outstretched towards him: "Grüss Gott, Oitzinger!"
Henceforth he shall bear me company to the end of his days.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE GUIDE

Kein Gebet, kein Glaube
macht den Menschen frzsmmer
als die Einsanikeit
des rauschenden Waldes,
als die freic Flimmelsnähe
auf den Gipfeln der Berge!

(i) Introductory

WE have now made the acquaintance of Oitzinger as schoolboy, shepherd, woodman, and mastersawyer, as farmer and contractor. But the setting peculiarly adapted for his gifts was the mountain-world. Here he was in his native element. I say without hesitation that he was the most individual, and at the same time the gayest, kindest, and most enterprising of my guides. He was brilliantly fitted for his task: courage, physical strength, intelligence, and good health were all his; swift-footedness, endurance, and enterprise; fine cragsmanship, and an intimate knowledge of mountains and their capricious moods; a first-rate sense of direction; instant, subtle grasp of the needs of the moment, together with foresight and constant vigilance. Add to these, nobility of outlook, an untarnished sense of honour, charming modesty, lively humour, and a true enthusiasm for mountains, and you will find united in him all the supreme physical and moral qualities of his profession. What more can a man desire- He was no mere guide in the ordinary sense, he was unique; indeed, a very eagle of the mountains.
In the valley he gave the impression of just lounging along. He had the famous long stride characteristic of the glorious Seventh Carinthian Regiment. However, slow as his pace appeared, you had to stride out properly to keep up with him. If you met him homeward bound from some mountain expedition, with a weary tourist trailing behind, you might well fancy that he was just back from a stroll, with his dog trotting at heel.
As a rock-climber he was magnificent, a model to all. He moved with ease and natural simplicity, with unerring grace and sureness, without wasting strength or breath. Those "convulsive jerks," of which even Purtscheller speaks, were foreign to him. In hoisting his body and leverage, he used his hands mainly for a cunning division of the body's weight. He seemed to soar almost spontaneously upward, not by amazing gymnastics but through skilful use of ground learned as a boy. Like all my great guides, he always seemed to be doing no more than walking. He was a master of balance on those ticklish and often treacherous places where you are neither walking nor genuinely climbing, on steep broken ground and awkward narrow shelves and terraces, where his goatherd's education was manifest.
It happened that at this time I fell more and more deeply in love with the Western Julians. I had already made a number of big expeditions there with my Trentaners, such as the first ascents of the Montasch from Spranje and Seissera, and the first exploration of the north-western cliffs of the Wischberg. But much remained to be done ' and almost every other climb with Oitzinger might take on the character of anew expedition. Naturally, Oitzinger's home -mountains, the Wischberg and Montasch groups, occupied the foreground. In the Kanin group there had long been a dearth of so-called problems, and those still available I had already solved without serious trouble. However, I continued to visit this group repeatedly with Oitzinger or Pesamosca, if only to renew the marvellous impressions of a mountain landscape which is unique in form. The message of the Kanin is certainly not exhausted with a few short visits to its summit; and though I have trodden it perhaps more than thirty times, it would still have many new things to tell me to-day. True knowledge of this fabled realm is the work of a lifetime.

(ii) Wischberg

We had often stared up at the north-east gully of the Wischberg, but were doubtful whether to attack it, for Oitzinger knew that the chamois avoided it, perhaps owing to impassable steps, or worse still, to stones. When at length we decided for it, we were rewarded by a fine victory won at no great cost. The two overhangs, which perhaps the chamois find an impassable barrier, were climbed by means of a triple human ladder. Oitzinger, being the lightest, formed the crown of this living tree, and I myself, as the strongest of the trio, figured as its much-betrodden base. I have told elsewhere how in consequence of a sudden slip by Oitzinger, promptly checked, our tree swayed violently; how our fourth man, my friend Dr. Bolaffio, seated in the stalls of this cramped rocky theatre, witnessed the half-thrilling, half-comic spectacle of a most peculiar and grotesque danse macabre.* It may seem strange to the numberless climbers who now pass each year up and down this gully, that our experienced party was then reduced to such shifts. They should bear in mind that during the war, in October 1915, when our post on the Wischberg was in grave danger, it was my task as Alpine Referent of my mountain brigade to supervise the construction of a rockpathway, of which traces are still left at certain points, though much of it has been obliterated by the mountain itself; besides, in those days the Wischberg was sometimes under heavy fire, when the shells, striking above, dislodged masses of boulder and scree into the gully, so that the two steps in the gully-bed are now not so high as they were.** I entrusted Oitzinger with the construction of this path, which had to be completed at top speed, almost between sundown and sunrise. With the assistance of Angelo Dibona, one of the most famous Dolomite guides, and two other competent cragsmen, he secured the ascent with ropes within twenty-four hours, and then in three more days constructed a safe track to the summit of the Wischberg by means of steps blasted in the rock, numerous iron

* Alpine Pilgrimage, page 122.
** Since the summer of 1934 there are fixed ropes in these two places.

stanchions, and two tall wooden ladders, whereby all requisites could be taken up with the utmost dispatch. The ladders have, of course, long since rotted away, and only a few of the stanchions and the chiselled steps remain to vex the ancient splendour of this rock-girt majesty.
Nowadays this north-east gully is the proper Wischberg route from Valbruna, and also the shortest, unless you prefer the long detour, enchanting alike for its scenery as for its flowers, by the Bärenlahnscharte and the Capanna Corsi. And there is something else for ever associated with it: our cheerful laughter during the first ascent still echoes among those walls. It will always be the jolliest climb in the whole Julian Alps, and when you come to the overhanging steps, give a thought to the comic straits of crown and base in our Steigbaum, and join in our merriment.
If you are searching for new routes look for the paths which the chamois take. There is always method in them. If you see chamois climb on to a cliff, or race in flight across a terrace, study the problems of their purpose and direction; follow them, and you will often find some surprising solutions.
On this occasion, when the steep, narrow section of the actual gully lay beneath us, and there remained nothing but the easy final ascent between us and success, we lay down in the highest spirits, revelling in the brilliant sunshine of a true Julian day. At this moment, on the broad terraces which pass from the east into the open hollow above the head of our gully, we sighted a large herd of chamois, perhaps thirty head, grazing peacefully. They were moving towards our halting-place, unconscious of our presence. We kept as quiet as mice. Where were they bound for- And even more, where had they come from- In their direction, the terraces winding ever narrower across the cliff were soon lost in the monstrous, gloomy northern precipices of the Gamsmutter, and it seemed impossible that any chamois path could lead that way. It was as if the herd had sprung full grown from the vast abyss. And yet we had the impression that they were on some long, traditional journey from a definite starting-point to some alluring goal. They drew nearer and nearer. Suddenly a few pebbles came from overhead: three chamois appeared just above us. When they sighted us they fled panic-stricken down the steep slope eastward, towards the approaching herd. We watched with the utmost excitement to see what would happen. As the three fleeing chamois dashed close beneath them at full speed, the herd halted as if at the word of command, and remained for some time motionless, staring after the trio in evident amazement. Suddenly they became uneasy, and their leader, turning about with a mighty leap, began to race after the three fugitives, with all the herd in panic at his heels, back towards the Gamsmutter precipices. In a few moments they all had vanished, as if the abyss had opened and swallowed up the whole rout. What if there should be some exit that way after all-
Oitzinger and I remembered this episode when a year or two later Osvaldo Pesamosca told us something which appeared to have a certain connection with it. Many years earlier, when he was still a boy, he had heard from his uncle, the famous chamois-hunter Giuseppe Pesamosca, that there was in fact a long terrace across the northern Gamsmutter precipices, used by the chamois in migration from the Wischberg to the Kaltwasser glen, but when his uncle tried this way he found one place hardly possible even for chamois, let alone men. This was the sum of Osvaldo's knowledge.
Giuseppe Pesamosca was the great romantic figure of Val Raccolana. Born at Piani of the race of Lóuf, a stern, silent, dark-visaged peasant from the mountains of Friuli, rarely known to smile, he was consumed with a passion for hunting and a lust for barbarous freedom. The family scutcheon, I once remarked, should be a warning finger on scaled lips. As a chamois-hunter he was unrivalled in daring and prowess. To escape military service he wandered for seven years, winter and summer alike, on the mountain heights, in the upper regions of Wischberg, Montasch, and Kanin. Hidden in solitude in forsaken chalets, in caves, or beneath the open sky, hunted and harassed unceasingly by gendarmes, always threatened but never caught, he lived a precarious life from what he could shoot and such small gifts as his friends could bring in secret. This continued until I866, when the valleys of Friuli passed into Italian hands. Then at length, after seven years of hardship and privation, this unconquerable hero, now lord and master of those upland heights, descended in the pride of freedom to his native valley. He knew every passage and terrace, all the secret places of his mountains. Where he had failed to find a way, surely human skill and endurance alone could not bring success. The young Osvaldo must have listened with pious reverence to the tales of this remarkable man who had long been a legendary figure. He would tell them in a hushed, solemn voice, as if speaking in awe of some traditional hero. The bold, turbulent spirit of Giuseppe soon tired of valley life; before long he emigrated to America, and there died. How many secrets of the Julians must lie buried in his humble grave in a far country I
With these thoughts we turned our steps to the Kaltwasser glen and the delightful, picturesque amphitheatre of rock at its head. At once the chamois offered their service as route-finders, and we accepted their guidance gladly. The difficult, direct routes up the north face of the Korspitze had little interest for us; climbs like these are made once, perhaps, for the sake of new adventure, and never again. The chamois led us from the great Kaltwasser ravine by two routes certainly not then known to tourists, which struck us as incomparably more valuable from the explorer's point of view, connecting as they do this beautiful peak with the Kaltwasser glen, and also offering to less adventurous scramblers the welcome possibility of traversing the mountain, as well as a new approach from the Kaltwasser side to the present Capanna Corsi. At the same time we obtained a marvellous view of the superb east face of the Kaltwasser Gamsmutter; its great girdle of many-coloured slabs had never been climbed, and from the Korspitze the prospect was by no means simple or inviting. However, we noticed that this face had a peculiar attraction for fugitive chamois, as if here lay their surest refuge. Clearly it could not be a cul-de-sac. Again and again we watched them toiling up by ways long inexplicable to us, on to the broad terrace which leads high up to the north-east ridge of the Gamsmutter. We knew that this terrace also stretches over to the Seissera flank. In early summer, when snow is still lying, it looks like a silver snood woven about the broad forehead of the mountain. I began to realize that it only remained to discover the connection between this north-east ridge and those terraces by which the great herd had approached us during our ascent of the north-east gully on the Wischberg. Osvaldo was sent out on reconnaissance in the summer of 1913, with a second Friuli peasant to safeguard him. He reported that the connection was there all right, Giuseppe's terrace being the link, but that it was impossible to follow, because in one very narrow place above a terrific drop there was an overhanging bluff several yards wide, which, however, the chamois turned by a narrow shelf below the overhang. The cast face of the Kaltwasser Gamsmutter was apparently not too difficult, broken rock leading from the terrace to the summit.
In late August of that year we climbed this face. I had invited two young friends from Vienna to join me, Herma and Erwin Poech. Brother and sister climbed with an enchanting ease, like two squirrels; they were entrusted to Oitzinger, while Pesamosca and I discreetly led the way. I believe that we took the best route possible up the face; the many parties which have repeated the climb appear to have made their own variations, but none can have been easier or shorter than ours. While the old gentleman took his case beside a snow-patch on the terrace, the guides hurried off with my young friends towards the critical bluff. They returned in great excitement, the young pair brimful of confidence. I saw that they were hoping and longing for a sign from me for the decisive attack. But our goal was the Kaltwasser Gamsmutter, and it was already late and the weather had become doubtful. Oitzinger was thirsting for battle. He vowed solemnly, with guileless sarcasm, that he was ready to secure each member of the party, provided that they were "light," and, of course, "slim." Thus did the rogue prefer the two agile squirrels to his ponderous broadbeamed master. Osvaldo alone, true to Giuseppe's tradition, coolly maintained that Oitzinger would be defeated. Their usual rôles were reversed: Oitzinger was now the thruster, Pesamosca the steadying hand. But when later I commissioned Vladimir Dougan, the best of my young men, to make the first passage of the terrace, it was ordained that Pesamosca, not Oitzinger, should go with him to victory.
In this way the famous "Pathway of the Gods," child of a new era, was born of the most classic, the most sequestered of all the chamois paths in the Western Julians; and after years of study and endeavour my two trusty servants, Oitzinger and Pesamosca, stood as godparents at its presentation. Much time passed before this strangest of all secrets in the Western Julians was fathomed, and the slender tracery of the wide-spanned bridge linking Kaltwasser and Wischberg rose before my astonished gaze from the mystery of a legendary world of crag and abyss into the clear light of to-day. All the greater, then, was my contentment; and on looking back I consider that the discovery, the christening and presentation in literature of this Pathway of the Gods is among my best work in the Alps. All honour to my devoted helpers and fellow-labourers!
Of our eight or nine new routes on the Wischberg from north-cast, north, and north-west, Oitzinger took part in six. Both of us delighted, too, in repeating an expedition, and the most popular was the crossing of the Mosesscharte from the Spranje to the summit of the Wischberg, or perhaps the ascent by the north-western terraces; a fine climb which was a constant source of attraction. Oitzinger was with me when I climbed the great north-west gully direct to the summit, which is in fact merely a short, steep variation of my two first routes with the Trentaners, avoiding all detours where possible. He and Pesamosca worked in perfect harmony as we climbed up over the superb structure of a beautiful double terrace on to narrow, dizzy shelves and so by the Spranje Tower or Cima de lis Codis to the final traverse. But Oitzinger's greatest feat on the Wischberg was the discovery of the direct north climb from the Grosse Naboisscharte, for which the chief credit is due to him. We had first made an exact study of this magnificent north face from the top of the Grosser Nabois. On the decisive day our second man was Giuseppe Pesamosca, son of the fabulous hero of Val Raccolana. Old Kandutsch carried the blankets for our bivouac in the Grosse Naboisscharte, and while we three prepared the camp Dr. Bolaffio and Oitzinger made the first traverse of the Grosser Nabois by its north face, joining us towards evening on the pass. Next day Oitzinger summoned his whole reserve of strength for our success. This gigantic wall is very difficult and extraordinarily complicated, so that hardly any of the many later parties have succeeded in keeping to the exact line of their precursors, while many have even missed the way and been forced to turn back; in fact, almost every ascent of this north face bears the stamp of a new expedition. If ever we halted, Oitzinger would busy himself hunting out the way, now pushing ahead, now retracing his steps. I shall never forget how, when close beneath the summit ridge, we were suddenly stranded on horribly loose and treacherous rock at an exceptionally steep angle, with no better support than chance friction-hold, until finally, with the energy of despair, and yet with the utmost circumspection, Oitzinger succeeded in forcing a way out. It was perhaps only two or three rope-lengths, but the danger was extreme. "Slowly, slowly! Don't slip! Careful with the hold!" came the incessant voice of Oitzinger; to which the dreadful abyss below added its own warning. There was no chance of securing each other. A man must thank his God if he escapes in safety out of such a place, and certainly each one of us gave thanks from the bottom of his heart. Remember Edward Whymper's words about the Barre des Ecrins: "In fact, the game here was not worth the risk. The guides felt it as well as ourselves, and as Almer led off he remarked with more piety than logic, 'The good God has brought us up, and He will take us down in safety,' which showed pretty well what he was thinking about."
A proverb of our Alps puts similar thoughts more bluntly, and perhaps more appropriately: "Wärst nit aufig'stiegen, wärst...!"
My reminiscences of Oitzinger on the Wischberg would be incomplete without a thought for the dear old Findenegg hut, now Capanna Corsi, where so many of our climbs found a happy ending. It is beautifully situated, with a wide view of the sombre gables of the eastern Kanin crests, and on the boulders all round the hut blooms the elegant Blau-Männeli, Veronica Bonarota. Here the famous Frau Pertosi reigned as caretaker, a true Küstenländerin of the old school, and mistress of three languages, German, Italian, and Slovene, as was the habit among those mountains in pre-war days. I have written before of Oitzinger's charming, tender liaison with her (I use the word in its most honourable sense), but I will repeat the story for the light it throws on our friend's musical gifts. The moment we set foot on the summit ridge, were it from west, from north, or from cast, he would scat himself so as to keep an eye on the hut, and there tune his throat, lean back, yodel and sing, till emotion overcame him and he closed his eyes. Then he would turn to me naively: "She's outside now, the landlady. Marvellous how she yodels; cooks too, and keeps good beer. A fine woman!" I said nothing, but kept my eyes fixed on the distant scene. The antiphonal song continued, deep calling unto height in growing appeal till the cliffs were full of the echo. What glorious songs he had in his rich repertoire! There was a concert for you! At length the singer's throat grew dry and husky, and he suggested "How would it be, Herr Doktor, if we went down for a beer- "He almost always got his way. After all, hearts are not made of stone.
And then, evening in the hut. We sit there content with the day's work, at peace with ourselves and all the world, waiting with eager eye and appetite for the good things yet to come. Beer met us on arrival. Now there is a vision of sausage with vegetables, and admirable wine beside; and after a solemn pause for art's sake, for each one of us a vast steaming pancake, Frau Pertosi's chef d'oeuvre, beyond praise; cheese, bread and butter, of course, and black coffee, but nothing will disturb our night's slumbers. Oitzinger gives us the merriest tales from his varied career, for this genial atmosphere is no place for Kotzi Tzigarin. He is keeping that man of blood for a more suitable occasion. Across Osvaldo's dark features there seems to flit something which might perhaps even grow to a smile had his stem, anxious life left room for smiles on his face. Poor Osvaldo! How glad I am to think that every now and then-as often as possible, and yet seldom enough-I was able to provide hours which were for him a feast of joy. In the fevered dreams of his last days he fancied himself constantly with us on some great climb. These, the happiest and proudest memories of his life, filled his thoughts, as they turned to our friendship and dwelt with me to the end. How rich and fortunate was Oitzinger's life in comparison with his! And yet they had one thing in common, their marvellous loyalty towards myself.

(iii) Montasch

Cheerful as our common labours were on the Wischberg, that bright mountain of sunlit terraces and sunshine, our favourite peak among the Western Julians was always the Montasch. Before I made Oitzinger's acquaintance I had already explored the Spranje and north-west shoulder ascents of this colossus. However, I was not really content with either of these routes; they did not solve the problem of a direct climb from the north, that is, a purely Carinthian way, which I felt that I must and would finally discover. Years went by in restless examination and experiment, which kept me perpetually in suspense. My thoughts hovered unceasingly round this great and difficult task. Oitzinger was full of understanding, and backed me up enthusiastically, putting all his ability at my disposal; and from now onward the gleam of our camp-fire might often be seen at the north foot of the Montasch. Our attempt from the eastern Montasch corrie in the direction of the rocky amphitheatre on the north face was defeated by the difficulty of the rocks; our attack from the lower chimneys of the north-west shoulder route towards the central buttress was soon broken up by stonefall from the great Red Gully below the Red Gap. There remained, then, only the central buttress, from its base upward, and this route at length led us to victory on August 24, 1902. I have described the whole climb in great detail; but I feel bound here to reproduce part of this account, as there is one place which links the name of Oitzinger for all time with the mountain. This is the notorious step called Passo Oitzinger.
I begin from the moment when the faint, distant chime of bells quivered up to us. Midday was striking on the Luschari. In the heat of conflict we had forgotten the passage of time. Oitzinger and Joze took off their hats and paused in devout silence, bending for a moment towards Luschari. The peace of God moved solemnly upon the face of the cliffs, and each man listened in reverent humility.
To the left rises the steep crest of the bastion. A third of the way up the wall- is a narrow horizontal shelf inclined outwards; above this, a thin shallow crack, which appeared to offer very steep access to a broad upper shelf two-thirds of the way up the wall; the general angle almost vertical, and the drop terrific. The problem was to gain the lower shelf, take a few steps to the right, and climb the crack to the upper shelf. There was no easier way, so Oitzinger attacked the place. But he took it too fast, and, despite my advice, without removing his rucksack. When he had worked up the crack to within perhaps five feet of the upper shelf, he called down that he could get no farther, the rucksack was hampering him. I called to him to climb down. But his position was too insecure, and the rucksack hindered him from making the small turn needed. He was afraid of falling. "Throw down the rucksack," I shouted up quickly. Even this was impossible: "I should go with it I" and already there was a note of despair in his voice. He hung there between heaven and earth, unable to move either up or down. I had indeed belayed his rope as best I could, but the only available belay was small and insecure, and Oitzinger was now so high above me that I should have had the greatest difficulty in holding him, and might have been dragged off as well.
A short consultation with joie. No help could come from below; at any cost he must get above Oitzinger. With a look of fierce determination he scrambled nimbly as a cat on to the crest of the ridge and disappeared behind it. There passed an eternity of time-twenty minutes at least, I should say, perhaps half an hour. Oitzinger held on bravely. I encouraged him with a few calm words whenever an uneasy cry of impatience or despair rang down, placing myself as firmly as possible, looking to the rope, and calculating every possibility in the event of a fall. Nothing was to be seen or. heard of joie. "I can't hold on any longer," said Oitzinger at times, and I noticed with alarm that his legs were beginning to tremble. Suddenly, a pebble! joie had appeared noiselessly above us. It had been a masterpiece of climbing, and never again will that stretch be climbed. He took off his coat, quickly tied his belt to it, and let an end down to Oitzinger. With his last strength Oitzinger managed somehow to buckle the belt to the rope. joie drew it up, and soon Oitzinger was lying exhausted on the upper shelf. Both were in need of a rest. Then the rope was thrown down, Bolaffio, rucksacks, and axes followed, and I came last. This crack is one of the hardest places I have ever climbed.
Shortly after 3 p.m. the summit was ours, and with it the direct northern route. It remains to this day the ideal route, and will certainly so continue, for all later variations or other so-called direttissime are nothing more than desperate feats of audacity or madcap irresponsibility.
I found Oitzinger's assistance of the utmost value, when at Professor Adolf Gstirner's request I spent two successive days in the summer of 1906 on the western walls of the Montasch, following the tracks of the two first parties.* Our task was to establish details of the routes which had then led to success, for the information available in print admitted various interpretations. Oitzinger's shrewd intelligence and sure gift of observation here came in very handy, and Professor Gstirner had every reason to be satisfied with the results of our exploration. Those two somewhat laborious, but most impressive days of scrambling added greatly to our knowledge of the Montasch. All the big slab-walls between the Lower and the Upper Terrace, the two terraces themselves, and both the Y-shaped western gullies were thoroughly examined, and all their intricacies fully revealed to us. Furthermore, we achieved important new results in the first and hitherto the only ascent of the fourth gully, and in discovering the possibility of a direct ascent to the summit from the Forca dei Disteis. This extraordinarily steep route, which in places is almost vertical, was climbed in the summer of igo8, and it is one of the most severe of my expeditions, certainly not inferior in difficulty to the notorious slab on the Italian side of the Col des Grandes Jorasses or the ascent

* Hermann von Findenegg with Antonio Brussofier; and the Austrians, Dr. Ottokar Chiari and Professor Diirr, with Osvaldo Piussi, called Fabo.

of the Breche de l'Amône from the Argentiere Glacier.
On this occasion Oitzinger and Pesamosca were again with us. Their co-operation was marvellous to watch, though perhaps I may add that Bolaffic, and I, being just back from the Western Alps, were also at the top of our form. Nevertheless, we should not have succeeded (I am speaking, of course, of climbing without artificial aids) if the difficulty had been even to a small extent increased. This is especially true of the lowest section and the upper exit. In the latter Oitzinger and Pesamosca, helping each other, climbed an exceedingly steep triangular slab of firm but almost holdless rock, while Bolafflo and I chose a high, dark, crumbling chimney to the right, full of loose stones; it was out of the fryingpan into the fire, from great difficulty into grave danger. The worst place of all was the highest step, at the actual entrance to the gully above. I let Bolaffio go first, and helped him up, but to this day I have no idea how I managed to get up without help as last man.
There is a cheerful epilogue to this climb. A few years ago, four of the most dashing rocciatori of Trieste, grand fellows, came to me and asked which was my hardest scramble in the Julians: they would like to measure themselves against it. A man should hunt out his own difficulties rather than ask others for them; if necessary, let him overcome them by himself, but not go out of his way for them. However, I told them: "Suhi Plaz by my first route, and Montasch from the Forca dei Disteis."
"How high would the difficult bits be-"
"Perhaps forty feet on the Suhi Plaz, and quite four hundred on the Montasch."
"Good, then we'll go for the Montasch!" And I gave them every detail, complete with sketches.
Three days later they turned up again; no longer four bold rocciatori, but more like four drowned rats. A funeral procession!
"What has happened-"
"We couldn't find your route."
"Well, and what then-"
"We must have kept two or three hundred feet, perhaps even more, too far to the right. We found a hole at the foot of an absolutely impossible wall; we crawled through, and there in front of us was a perfectly simple way to the summit. We were up in no time!"
"Well," I said with delight, "I congratulate you. This is very important. You've discovered the easy way per lis Napis, which Giuseppe Piussi was always talking about in the old NevCa days, though I never believed him, as I thought he was drawing his usual long bow. This may be the southern route of the future!"
But the excellent young men were inconsolable. They were overwhelmed with shame at their discovery of an easy way, next door to the most difficult climb in the Julians!
It was a glorious vindication of dear old Giuseppe-God rest his soul-and all his boasting. He must have chuckled contentedly in his grave. "Well, I may have exaggerated at times-but what about me now- Wasn't it well hidden, this pet route of mine per lis Napis-"
Our route, then, from the Forca dei Disteis is too difficult to have any future. Nevertheless, had I not climbed these magnificent cliffs I should not have come to full knowledge of the Montasch.
A singular atmosphere envelops my memories of the days on the North Tower of the Montasch. I can recall the first time that I distinguished this bulwark from the giant frame of Montasch, and gazed on its steep, slender outline in the vast solitudes, where it rose proud and challenging to the blue heaven, bordered by eternal snow and girt about with white clouds, chief courtier to its lord above the terrifying depths of Scissera and Dogna. Oitzinger and I first tested its accessibility from the west ridge of the Montasch; it would vanish in racing mists, and now shine forth in white, magical brilliance, while in the Red Gap beneath a mysterious Brocken spectre of uncanny hue kept ghostly watch; and at length we assailed it and won the victory. on a day of adventure which seems to come from fabled times of long ago. On that occasion Osvaldo was the thruster, Oitzinger's the steadying hand upon my shoulder. I can still see him above me as I crossed the fearsome terrace which gives access to the great snow gully below the Red Gap.
I may indeed have been as surefooted as any good guide, but my breadth of build constituted a serious danger in such a narrow passage as this, where there was nothing but minute, unreliable patches of turf above formidable sweeps of slab. In the absence of handholds the projecting rocks might easily have upset my balance. Ten or twelve feet above me, and parallel to my track, ran a firm but singularly exposed ledge of rock, with just enough room for the foot, traversable only by a supreme master of balance, since there was not a vestige of handhold. Across this Oitzinger strode upright, holding my rope firm and urging me incessantly to caution, in tones all the more impressive for their gentleness. During the passage of this place we were each of us quite calm and collected, though fully conscious of the danger and of our individual responsibility. But the mere recollection of it still sends a cold shudder down my back. Mountaineering is a grand sportbut one can do with a good hold!
Then followed a delectable walk over the broad, fine-gravelled terrace into the snow gully, the long staircase hewn by Osvaldo up to the Red Gap, and a race over easy rocks to the summit. I have related elsewhere* how a succession of thunderstorms was approaching, and how the cairn began to murmur and sing at the moment when I placed a sharp coping-stone on it. Nothing alarmed Oitzinger more than the danger of lightning, which is a serious consideration in the Julians. "Quick, quick!" he cried in panic fear, and was well down the final rocks while Osvaldo was still standing mystified by the cairn, trying to fathom the secret of the music. He was convinced that there must be some living insect inside.
This danger Oitzinger had himself experienced during the late summer of 1899. He was traversing the Montasch from west to east, on a thundery day,

* Alpine Pilgrimage, pages 193-195.

with my brother-in-law Victor von Pozzi. While they were taking a short rest on the narrowest portion of the east ridge, just above the Verdi, where the well-known gendarme rises above the huge drop to the Seissera, the lightning struck close above them, and the inducted current ran through their bodies. They covered the stretch over the Verdi, down to the shelter of a cave, in what must be record time, through the wild uproar of a mountain thunderstorm. Oitzinger could never forget this lightning-stroke, and spoke of it to the end of his life.
It was a day of many excitements when we traversed Cime Gambon, on the ridge south-east of the Montasch, from the Spranje to Nevèa. Bolafflo and Joie were with us. The early summer of 1902 was snowy, and heavy glaze had defeated us on the Forca de lis Sieris, one of the southern Spranje passes beloved of Oitzinger and myself. To console ourselves for this failure, I suggested following the steep snow couloir, in which we were, to its head and seeing what lay beyond. So glorious was the prospect, so irresistible its call, that we went for it at once. The northern access to Cime Gambon, hitherto unknown, lay clear before us. A mad thirst for adventure possessed us. A fearfully steep snow gully, hanging from between vertical walls, rose above the dark, cavernous mouth of a gigantic hole carved deep in the mountainside at the base of the Gambon cliffs; and high overhead, still almost in the grip of winter, we could see snow-laden terraces in dazzling sunshine. "Come up, come up to us!" they seemed to call. "Here you will find happiness." Oitzinger guided us marvellously, although later that afternoon mists made direction-finding difficult in the maze of subsidiary ridges. In the lower and central portions we were almost constantly in danger of avalanches. Huge masses of snow hung ready to fall at any moment. Even now I have a feeling of gratitude towards those four guardian angels who must, I fancy, have walked before us that day.
It is out of the question to record every climb undertaken with Oitzinger, for they are beyond number. I need only add that with Montasch, Wischberg, and Kanin, we must have been together at least ten times on each mountain. Every year in July, before beginning my journey in the Western Alps, I visited the Scissera and there first spent a beautiful, refreshing off-day. Towards evening Oitzinger joined me, and next day we made a big climb over to Nevèa, the quiet mountain paradise. Generally it was a traverse of the Montasch by the north-west shoulder route, or of the Forca de lis Sieris, which for a long time was the preserve of Oitzinger, Pesamosca, and myself, and was otherwise almost unknown.
Seissera and Nevèa! I must give a word to the two inns which await our coming; on one side, the Seissera hut of pre-war days, long since destroyed, on the other, the old cabin of the Nevèa refuge: here, sweet omelette, spring chicken, and good Austrian wine; there, risotto, macaroni, roast fowl, and splendid old Barbera. No sooner were we in sight than the spit began turning before Signora Catina's fire. What a world of feeling was in the soft, stimulating tinkle of the turnspit bell when the machine ran down and needed winding! Yes, it was pretty good there, wasn't it, Oitzinger-
In Friuli, Oitzinger won all hearts. The good Signora Catina Di Val, mistress of Nevèa, and Signor Giovanni, her kind-hearted husband, their admirable daughter, herdsmen, guides, all loved him dearly. Osvaldo clung to him like a brother. The other guides were our old friend Giuseppe Piussi and his devoted colleague Francesco Marcon. Piussi was laid low by a falling tree. And poor Checco died a terrible death, burnt alive during the war in his cottage at Raccolana.
Checco was a great raconteur; but his repertoire was small, and one had to hear the same stories over and over again. Oitzinger and I listened with stoic courage. I can recall the story of two brothers from Udine, who often came to Nevèa on tour, and always indulged in a wild scuffle and fisticuffs with each other. On one occasion they had provided themselves with chocolate, but on the clear understanding that they must set about it most sparingly, and only cat it on climbing days. One of them, however, lagged suspiciously behind, and as he came on slowly he was chewing.
"Kruck, kruck I could be heard. "Kruck, kruck!"
"What are you chewing there-" asked the other suspiciously.
"Kruck, kruck!" He had been at the chocolate. And pimf-pamf, off went a smart left and right on the ear; pimfete-pamfete! and a dreadful affray broke out, so that poor Checco was scarcely able to part the hostile brethren.
Checco can no more speak for himself, so I have here taken up the tale for him. Kruck, kruck, pimf-pamf, pimfete-pamfete-but how much better he told it!

(iv) Winter Expeditions

The picture of Oitzinger's activities as guide would be incomplete without some mention of our great winter expeditions together. He was thoroughly familiar with winter in the mountains, and was a fine judge of snow conditions. Our first winter expedition together was a Christmas ascent of the Prisank in the Eastern julians; however, success came, not at the first attempt, but only after two failures. On our second attempt, while we were struggling knee-deep, often waist-deep, through mushy snow beneath a burning sun, "this isn't snow," he cried angrily again and again, "it's a Polenten!"
Far grander, far more difficult and dangerous, was our first winter ascent of the Jalouc, which likewise took place at Christmas-time. This bold peak is shaped like the Matterhorn, with a steep roof to eastward. The frosts of winter had covered the roof with a coating of hard, green, glassy ice a span thick, in which only very small steps could be cut owing to the slabs beneath; and in the radiance enveloping the highest rocks it looked like the glittering façade of some gigantic palace of ice. That day the peak plainly showed its intention of hurling us off the roof, and it was within an ace of succeeding. I had carefully arranged the order of roping for the descent in our party of five: Oitzinger in front with the weakest member, Joze and myself as the strongest in the rear, with Joze behind me. I was on the look-out for a slip, but when Bolaffio lost his footing, the sudden jerk caused the whole steep ice-slab to break away beneath my feet, and it seemed that we were all lost. Had we fallen, Oitzinger and his protege would have been just whipped out of their steps. I can still see the look on Oitzinger's ashen face in this moment of supreme danger, when only the united strength and promptitude of the two last men, under God's hand, saved the lives of all five. The spectre of the great Matterhorn accident of I865 had passed swiftly on dark pinions through our midst.
A heavenly brilliance surrounded our winter's day on the Kanin. We reached Raffil by sleigh at 2 a.m. on January 12, 1902, intending to engage a reliable man as porter; but at this hour naturally every one was asleep, so Oitzinger boldly carried out a little coup de main, haling one Filafer, miner and guide, from his bed. This would have been easy (the man was as gentle as a lamb) had it not been for the resistance of his brisk, sharp-tongued better half. This seems to have led to a lively scene, for when Oitzinger came back somewhat heated from the fray-needless to say, with a resigned Filafer in attendance-he called out to my friend: "Yes, Herr Doktor Bolaffius, you were a clever fellow; you never got married!" Oitzinger was fond of repeating this honourable address to my friend on other occasions, and I was surprised that he never applied it to myself, also a bachelor of long standing. Perhaps he had greater confidence in Bolaffio's bachelorhood; anyway, to my regret, I never received any corresponding recognition of my cleverness.
There was an immense quantity of snow, and we should hardly have reached Nevèa up to time had not a party of Raccolana peasants trodden out a deep, narrow track a few days before. We encountered no difficulty that day; on the contrary, the climbing on the Kanin was markedly easier than in summer. The big snow gully above the glacier was much less steep owing to the amount of snow, and had none of the obstacles sometimes present in a hot season. The passage of the summit ridge, with its crown of gigantic cornices, was sheer joy; the view of heavenly clearness and beauty. For all this, it was no mean undertaking, seeing that despite the worst of snow conditions (and that, mark you, without racquettes or ski) we took only twenty hours for the actual climb, and only two nights and one day for the whole journey from Trieste to the summit and back. Having set out on the evening of January 11th, we were calmly at work again on the morning of the 13th. The Jalouc expedition took rather less time. We were tough fellows in those days.
Then there was the winter ascent of our beloved mountain of sunshine, the Wischberg, on a day when the peak rose in dazzling radiance to a cloudless sky. The snow was so deep and in such horrible condition that we were afoot a whole long day, from earliest dawn to late evening, fighting our way from Raffil to the Findenegg hut. Next day we had first to clear the tunnel leading to the "Kuchel," which was completely blocked with sticky, caked avalanche-, snow, as may easily occur also in early summer. But above the slab-walls, immediately ahead, were vast curtains of ice, whole cascades, before whose beauty we stood speechless. After some hesitation we realized that a cunningly cut row of steps might easily put us above the obstacle, for a good axe can master every sort of ice. Oitzinger cut the steps with great circumspection. Half-way up, however, we noticed that everywhere between the ice-coating and the steep, underlying rock there was a gurgling stream of water from the thaw; at any moment the gigantic load of ice might break away in a disastrous journey to the depths below: a danger which would be enormously enhanced for the descent in such burning sunshine. Oitzinger turned to me, in the politest manner possible under such circumstances, with the urgent appeal that I should for a time convert myself into a bantam-weight; a distressing appeal for one to whom bantam-weight has always been an unattainable ideal! However, all went well. Even the most patent avalanche- danger in the first part of the descent was avoided without the least incident, and throughout the day nothing stirred on the mountain. How well I remember the limpid hour on the summit, amid almost vernal sunshine, above a world still shrouded in winter I
In conclusion, let me speak of the first winter ascent of the Montasch; not as the last in order, but as the greatest and loveliest of them all, the most beautiful expedition in all my long Alpine career. The memory of this day, so full of light and splendour, will accompany me to the end. It is one of the great landmarks of my life, as was the day of my Doctorate nearly fifty-four years ago, or that May Day of 1900 when my choir sang Palestrina's immortal Missa Papae Marcelli in the basilica at Aquilcia.
Four unsuccessful attempts preceded the ascent. Oitzinger took part in the third and fourth. For the third, I had suggested an assault by the window on the east ridge. Oitzinger was averse to this. The cold was intense, and as we entered the gully near the window the good man looked at me gravely and remarked significantly: "We shall all four go to perdition to-day!" We did indeed escape perdition, but it was a fruitless day of fearful exertion. Even Joze, who was as tough as nails, was heard to lament "It wasn't a climb; it was sheer torture!" However, my calculations were sound, and had it not been for the shortness of a winter's day, our somewhat adventurous route would in fact have brought us to victory. It was already 3.30 p.m. when we reached the bridge across the window and stepped out on to the east ridge, and in the gathering darkness we could not have reached the summit before 5 p.m. At that moment the icy north wind struck us with devastating force. We were at its mercy. Oitzinger implored me to turn back; nay, more, he insisted on immediate retreat, and beyond doubt he was right. To have failed utterly, with the goal so near! We returned to Nevèa well-nigh exhausted, with our illusions shattered, in the bitterness of defeat.
Utter failure, with the goal in sight! Such was again our experience one summer when endeavouring to cross the Zagercasenke from the basin of the Weissenfels lakes. We had climbed very high up a gloomy, almost vertical funnel by a long succession of steep and difficult chimneys curiously linked with each other, and were by now close to the exit on to easy broken ground just below the depression, when the rock changed; the strata dipped against us, and apart from the severe angle, a damp, dark slime rendered it all so slippery that mutual support was out of the question, and the danger of a slip increased with every movement. There must formerly have been a waterfall in this series of chimneys. The rocks were eing'saft, Oitzinger exclaimed in his drastic manner. Yes, soaped, there could be no more appropriate description. It was a matter of a beggarly two rope-lengths, perhaps even less; but the very smallest slip by any one of us would have sent the whole party flying beyond hope of mercy into the frightful gorge below. Joze was eager to continue, but Oitzinger put his foot down and voted decisively for retreat. He set his countenance against any idea that a man should, even for a brief moment, consciously surrender control of his life. Those are fine-sounding words of the poet:

Und setzet ihr nicht das Leben ein-
Nie wird euch das Leben gewonnen sein!

But are they more than a brilliant, seductive play of words- What lessons of life, still less of mountaineering, do they contain- To my mind, it is better to cherish Whymper's clear warning: the game must be worth the candle-in all life, and not merely on the mountains.
Our fourth winter attempt on the Montasch ended with inglorious speed. There had been a heavy snowfall a few days previously, and Pesamosca suggested that we should take, not an ice-axe, but a shovel. Deep drifts of loose snow covered the broken rocks at the foot of the peak, and Osvaldo's shovel sent huge loads of it trickling and hissing down to the depths. Wherever I looked, I saw avalanche-danger. My men took a more favourable view of our situation. There would always be plenty of time and opportunity for turning back higher up, they said. "The higher up, the worse it will be," I reflected; I saw that the day was already lost, and calmly ordered a retreat. I am certain that this decision was correct; and, between ourselves, Oitzinger must by then have been of my opinion. Thirty feet higher, and I am convinced that the rascal would have relieved me of my thankless task. However, knowing me so well, he chose to put the lead into my hand; and this too, if you please, with the accompaniment of a mild protest! Bolaffio acquiesced gloomily. Prompt, far-sighted and omniscient as he was in the practice of his barrister's profession, he was extraordinarily reluctant in the mountains to bring himself to foresee something which had not yet occurred, but which might occur at any moment. So I found myself the coward of the party that day. The guides looked askance at me, and my friend treated me with a mild and thoughtful reserve. Under such circumstances I am wont to take comfort in the wise proverb, "Better a live donkey than a dead lion!" But it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. You can never prove that you were right. Nothing short of an accident to the party can do so, and who would want this- It is better to cling to one's honest convictions and lay the matter to rest on the soft pillow of a clear conscience.
I was back again on February 5, 1905, with Oitzinger and Giuseppe Pesamosca, son of the old Raccolana hero, but unfortunately without Bolaffio, who regarded the Findenegg route on the west face as absolutely out of the question in winter. And we succeeded! Oitzinger was superb that day. His enthusiasm and strength, the skill and safety of his movements, his unshaken confidence in victory, all his splendid qualities as guide were brilliantly revealed. It was perhaps his masterpiece.
I can see him now on the narrow terrace of the west face. Terrace, did I say- This was neither terrace nor jutting ledge. Smothered in deep snow at a high angle, it was just a white fringe, traced as by some giant paintbrush across the huge wall of slabs. Oitzinger clung to it, cautiously cutting steps. The snow held, and I followed him. At an immense depth below lay the black, cavernous throat of the Clapadorie. We were soon clear of the place, and the day seemed won. After such a place, what could now stop us- Above us rose the Findenegg gully, steep as a church roof, the left branch of the Y blocked by enormous masses of snow and heavy glaze. Without a moment's hesitation, as if he had explored everything fully beforehand, Oitzinger led into the right branch, a route never yet taken, as the left branch is the proper way. The snow was hard frozen, and handholds were needed. In a short time the final cornice glittered in sunshine above our heads. With beating hearts we stepped out on to the summit, into the lustrous silver radiance. Not a cloud in the sky, not a breath of wind, so that one match lit all our three cigars. A day of blessing and happiness beyond words!
While we were preparing for the descent the air was filled with the thunder of awakening avalanches. We undid our whole four hundred feet of rope, to avoid putting undue weight on the snow. I took the lead, kicking deep, broad steps. The angle was so steep that at times I seemed to be poised in mid-air. Oitzinger came a hundred feet behind me, and Giuseppe another three hundred feet in the rear, cautiously paying out the rope-my long, thin Dauphiné rope, all honour to it, which we used to employ for the big bergschrunds there. Everything went smoothly, without the least hitch. We worked marvellously together, all three as one man. On the slab-wall above the terrace a cascade from the melting snow quenched our burning thirst. We had an hour's halt owing to the incessant fall of avalanches to await the coming of twilight. And as the sun went down in more than earthly splendour, the uproar of avalanches ceased as at a stroke. We rushed down to the Forca dei Disteis, to a supper of steaming polenta, roast chamois, and a great flask of Chianti in the Casera Pecol. And the first glass for Oitzinger. Ja, mei Liaber!
And so down next morning to Val Raccolana, by white paths of fairyland. Bravo, Oitzinger! All honour to you.
One peak of the Julians resisted our efforts. Three times we advanced to the assault, and each time it sent us empty away. This was the Suhi Plaz in the Eastern Julians. Our failure was due, not so much to technical difficulties, which we could have overcome, but to the evil state of the snow. The only possible point of departure was the Aliaz hut in the Vrata glen, as there was no means of spending the night higher up. If only we had found such snow as on our first winter ascent of the Triglay in 1894, when it was like climbing in crampons on a ground of ivory! But when you sink knee-deep at each step, a rise of nearly six thousand feet is a big undertaking for one day. Twice we set out shortly before midnight, and the third time as early as 9 p.m. In spite of this, daybreak found us still in the lower portions of the great avalanche-gully, so that finally we were forced to recognize defeat. With modern ski-technique it is an easy matter, but for us the door was closed.
These winter expeditions are described at greater length in my mountain book. Here I have made but short reference to them, and only in so far as Oitzinger took part. The mountaineers of a modern age should understand how we older men of pre-ski days carried out our winter climbs. There was much honourable labour, much tribulation; often we had to call on every reserve of strength; no lightning dash downhill, no rush of breathless speed, but after a slow ascent, step by step, a slow descent. Yet we found high reward in freedom of spirit and a cheerful heart. Let them not forget our labours. And may God's blessing go with them all!
***
I often visited Oitzinger, but not always for mountain expeditions, although he invariably presumed this. "Well, Herr Doktor, and what have you got up your sleeve this time-" was his greeting to me. He was always ready with something cheerful.
"No, Oitzinger, I have come for a rest-cure!"
Many a time my sole purpose in coming was to surrender myself to the beneficent influence of his personal charm and integrity. Nothing could be more welcome in times of crisis, when things had gone wrong, or if there had been failure where one had reckoned on success, in fact, in moments of discontent with life and with oneself. Every one needs times of inward meditation. A day with him was a healing and invigorating tonic. He taught me how to accept what was within my grasp, to adapt myself to life with gratitude for its gifts, and to set patience and simplicity in the place of exalted expectation. Anxiety melted beneath the warm rays of his humour, doubt vanished and a cheerful courage possessed the soul. After such a day, even if we had not set foot on a mountain summit, I bore home with me a vision of the high places, for I had sat at Oitzinger's feet in the illuminating school of the mountains. If a man shall order his goings in the symbol of some great mountain enterprise, looking steadfastly towards his goal, he will not stray far from the paths of righteousness. Per aspera ad astra!

CHAPTER EIGHT

BIVOUACS

Wir haben mit harzigen Zweigen
Ein Feuer geschürt und gefacht ù
Und lassen ein Opfer steigen
Der dunklen K6nigin Nacht.

Scht ihr ihr Anditz winken
Dort oben, stemenschön-
Schlaft wold, das Feuer will sinken,
Die Nacht geht iffier die Höh'n!

THIS is the song of Rudolf Baumbach, the Thuringian poet, the song of the bivouac-fire.
I was still in my boyhood when a family friend mentioned to me that on hunting expeditions he often slept in the woods, beneath the open sky, with his coat thrown over him. This made a peculiar appeal to my fancy, for I had never imagined that one could sleep elsewhere than in a snug bed, except in stories of Red Indians. Then I read my first Alpine book, the best and greatest of old days and for all time, Edward Whymper's Scrambles Amongst the Alps. The great hero of the Matterhorn relates how with Moore and Walker, under the guidance of Almer and Croz, he made the first ascent of the Barre des Ecrins, most ethereal of all Dauphine's ethereal mountains; how in descending from this glittering ice-bound reef the exhausted party were surprised by the coming of night, till finally he and Croz decided to bivouac in the pathless wilderness of boulder not far from the Ailefroide chalets, close by the roaring glacier-torrent. The story is enriched by stirring pictures, among them a most realistic woodcut showing Whymper and poor Michel Croz by their camp-fire of juniper beneath an overhanging rock. I could not rid my mind of this picture, nor of Whymper's vivid narrative. Once an idea takes root in a boy's impressionable mind, he may bear the mark of it for his whole life. I spent hours seated before this engraving. Even to-day, if I chance to look at it, the old wave of longing, the old feeling of romance, born once of surmise and expectancy, rises reawakened from my own experience.
When evening falls in the mountains the animals hasten to seek shelter for the night, and men press on to take refuge before dark at an inn or chalet or club hut. "Night is no man's friend," says the proverb. For almost all the mountaineers of my day, bivouacs were a gloomy experience. They gave you a solemn warning; in bivouac, they said, you suffered severely, missed the necessary rest and repose, wasted your strength, and next day you were only half-fit for work.
This feeling is deeply rooted in human nature and in our habits. We all know that sudden, painful anxiety when you discover that you have forgotten or lost your latch-key. And many of us are familiar with the overwhelming misery of some third-class guide, and the lamentations to which he will descend if adverse conditions have delayed the party, and the terrifying spectre of an involuntary night in the open menaces his peace of mind.
Of my earliest mountain friends, Otto and Emil Zsigmondy were certainly among the most adventurous, besides being of the simplest and toughest fibre. They never courted bivouacs, but if these appeared inevitable they took little pains to escape them; they carried out their expeditions according to plan, without bothering about a night's comfort, which they regarded as something of minor importance. They were ideal mountaineers. In Emil's splendid commemorative volume Im Hochgebirge there is an extraordinarily impressive description of an involuntary bivouac with Dr. Karl Diener one stormy night on the Ödstein, and in the same book Dr. Karl Schulz writes of an organized bivouac "im Rämi" before the first ascent of the Bietschhorn from the south. One of the most magnificent bivouac stories ever written comes from the pen of Otto, where Ludwig Purtscheller and the Zsignlondy brothers find themselves compelled by heavy stonefall to pass a whole day and night on the very steep rib where the Marinelli Couloir divides, high up on the cast face of Monte Rosa beneath the Nordend. You must read Otto's own description; in its modesty, clearness, and simplicity it is a classic of its kind.
The Zsigmondy brothers, then, as Otto maintains with satisfaction, could look back on a considerable number of bivouacs, some voluntary and still more of them impromptu, and they worked out a proper bivouac technique of their own. Purtscheller, prince of guideless climbers, Dr. Diener, Dr. August Bdhm, were none of them partial to bivouacs, and they would do all in their power to avoid them. I have a happy recollection of a most romantic bivouac in the Mont Blanc group with my friend Dr. Karl Blodig, on the grassy ledge above the smooth, repulsive roches moutonnées by the Glacier de Frebouzie, before our ascent of the Aiguille de Leschaux. It was well organized, and our sleeping-place was in perfect shelter, with plenty of wood and a brilliant blaze shining far down into Val Ferret. I shall never forget how the good Blodig wrapped me up that night, despite protest, in his own Eckenstein sleeping-bag, while contenting himself with a wretched blanket and the traditional jacket slung over him.
Nowadays it is all quite different. Bivouacs have become very popular; or perhaps I should say, very many nights are spent in the open. Certainly much more generous and suitable comforts are provided. One has only to think, for instance, of the Zdarsky sack, unknown to our generation, which a kind Providence has bestowed upon the latter-day mountaineer. Night, even a night in some horrible place, has lost its terrors for modern climbers; it is a thing to take in one's stride. One may question whether these modern nights in the open are still in part the relic of a romantic feeling for nature, or are not rather the reluctant handmaids of stupendous, almost superhuman feats, or even perhaps no more than an unwelcome and distasteful concomitant to be borne with silent resignation. When I read modern descriptions of such nights, it is often as if I were listening to a confession of some kind of martyrdom voluntarily undergone, though I admit that the cold is often intense, and one follows the extreme discomfort of such endless hours of misery with the deepest sympathy. I trust that nobody will accuse me of embarking here on a campaign against modern climbing; such a thing is far from my thoughts. It is true that I cannot fully understand its course, being now stranded in the ebbing waters of vanished decades of mountaineering. I prefer to cling to my point of view, that each man must seek happiness according to his own faith and practice. I wish these enterprising young men of to-day, in the midst of so much devil-daring, could pay me a visit in one of my old bivouacs, to see how extraordinarily comfortable we were! There were times when the cold shook every bone in my body; but it was always well worth while. And one thing I wish them with all my heart, and this is happiness in their bivouacs. For happiness should be the foundation-stone of all mountaineering.
But I must utter a warning against extravagance. The recklessness of certain ultra-modern feats of cragsinanship can never be to my taste. One should think first of the delight of living, of health and soundness of limb, and keep these free to serve aims greater than sporting successes can ever be; above all, shunning the pose of heroism in the mountains. Cragsmanship is a marvellous thing, but it cannot ever be more than a certain dexterity. To my mind, it should always be the means to an end. There remains something greater. For myself, I shall never forget that far and away the best cragsman of my acquaintance was my ape Benjamin,* of blessed memory.
I cannot approve the growing newspaper fashion of heralding mountain triumphs with a blare of trumpets, as if they were world-shaking events. The classic guideless trio of my old friends, the Zsigmondys and Purtscheller, always had a mocking and disdainful smile for such outbreaks of vanity, rare as they were in those years. What would they say nowadays, when arrogance and self-praise are in the ascendant- I believe that in former days there was greater modesty and a nobler outlook. We had no wish to hawk ourselves and our achievements through the streets.
It appears that in the matter of bivouacs I am an exception among climbers. I have always regarded a night beneath the stars as the highest form of mountain adventure. It was not merely that I did nothing to escape from such nights; on the contrary, I went out of my way often to find occasion for them, and always brought home with me a rich

* Arbeit, Musik, Berge-ein Leben, pages 245-256.

reward of inward happiness. I wonder if any mountaineer has bivouacked so often as myself. ' In my mountain book I put the figure at one hundred and fifty to two hundred, but I believe now that I put it too low, and that it may well have been appreciably higher, perhaps two hundred and fifty or even three hundred.
With my first teachers, the Trentaners, these bivouacs were something quite normal; and as a result of their secret hunting expeditions they grew up in tune with nature in the mountains. At that time there were hardly any club huts, and the few suitable chalets lay far apart, scattered here and there down the slopes or in forsaken corries. With the great differences of height often found in the julians, it was out of the question to descend each time into the valley, in order to reascend next morning for some new enterprise. When night fell we returned to the dwarf pine, kindled a fire, and lay down beside it. Choice of site was immaterial, and the rude simplicity of our equipment was little burden to us. These were very primitive bivouacs, where despite wind, weather, and cold, youth and enthusiasm carried us through the hallowed hours of a mountain night in holy places.
It was in the Western Alps that I took my degree in bivouac technique. Here I was enabled to learn from the experience of great guides, from the traditions of glorious days of old. My first bivouac on the cast face of Monte Rosa, beneath the Jägerhorn, revealed to me the clear distinction between nights in the Julian Alps and those among the great ice-peaks. The tone there is quite different, much sterner and more impressive, on a far grander scale. Joseph Croux, best son of Courmayeur, was my marvellous guide during the last years in the Western Alps. He shared all my love of nights in the open, and was always the first to welcome any such suggestion. He was a past master in bivouacs and bivouac soup. I have often been asked for the recipe. Would you like to hear it- Plenty of boiling water, plenty of fresh butter, Liebig meat-extract and bouillon capsules. Let it go on boiling merrily, and mind, don't forget the salt! Then add macaroni, lots of macaroni, for it is to be very thick soup. Next, plenty of cheese, Parmesan by preference, if you have it. Take the saucepan off the fire and drop in yolk of egg, during which a cunning and ready helper (generally it was myself) must stir the mixture with understanding. Crawl into your sleeping-bag immediately after drinking the soup, and you will keep warm until it is time to get up!
I can never forget my bivouacs with Croux: on the slabs of Mont Dolent, above the polished rocks by the Glacier de Frebouzie, and again in the lovely hanging garden of flowerincg asters near the Glacier de la Neuvaz, and on the Col du Says above dreaming, moonlit Valgaudemar; and so in dramatic crescendo to the stern nights below the Col Claire in Dauphin~, before the perilous days on Pie Gaspard, and those ethereal nights on the high rocky bastion above Maeugnaga beneath the Y on the Nordend, and in the cramped ice-cave hewn from the steep, glacial breastplate of the Grand Combin, which sheltered us so tenderly from a sudden, unparalleled change of weather by night.
***
Oitzinger now became part of the romance of these open-air nights. The fascination of his personality, his ready, cheerful devotion in the service of his master, his vivid, dramatic stories from an eventful life, the grisly anecdotes of Bulgarian forests, his pungent speech and inexhaustible humour, all these added a characteristic note to our bivouacs. Here he seemed to grow in stature, and became the true Oitzinger, unrivalled, unique. If Croux was our epic poet in camp, Oitzinger was the lyric poet of our sun-unit halts, the dramatist of our bivouacs.
Croux, the grave, discreet raconteur, rarely broke the even flow of his speech save for a sharp "bang" as he skilfully brought down a fine chamois, for, like all my guides, he was an enthusiastic hunter. With Oitzinger, blood-curdling tragedies and light comedy, hairbreadth escapes and rollicking farce, followed one another in rapid succession.
***
The sun begins its slow downward course. In a few hours it will be evening. To-day's task is ended, to-morrow will be another busy day. We are beneath the Subl Plaz, not far from the gigantic corrie of Zadnji Dovg.
"Look, Oitzinger, here's a good place!"
"Yes, Herr Doktor, first-rate; why not stop here!"
And now rucksacks are slung off and we set to work, levelling the ground and building a wall, as I have learnt to do in the Western Alps. Then a visit to the dwarf pine or alpenrose, to fetch our bedding. A smell of incense shall encompass our dreams. Sometimes it is the leaves of big, luxuriant mountain plants rampant near by, of monkshood or false hellebore, yellow gentian, or high-stemmed, broad-lobed umbellifers. From this leafy bed arises a sharp aromatic scent. The mere recollection of a night on such bedding revives the old fragrance; even as I can still clearly smell the cold steel of my ice-axe, whenever I think of a night's start for some great climb in the icy breath of glacier air. And yet what a long time ago it is now!
Dead pine and sprigs of larch, old roots, or perhaps dwarf juniper serve as firewood. We pile up a large store, kindle the fire, and build a small stone hearth. Not far away a gentle spring bubbles forth; otherwise we should have to bring up a slab of snow, for without water night in bivouac is a gloomy, uncomfortable affair. In these and julians it can mean heavy work, if the snowbeds are distant or not easy of access, and then this question of water will call for much self-sacrifice and perhaps great skill; one dark night, Joie, to his everlasting credit, climbed down the whole way from the Visoka Ponca ridge to the avalanche cone at the foot of the cliff in search of the necessary snow.
All is now ready, and camp-life can begin. The fire crackles, sparks fly out, a white column of smoke spreads over the steep wall at our backs, creeping slowly upward. A watcher in the valley below might fancy that a red star was hanging high on the silent night-bound cliffs. The soup is boiling. When pipes are lit Oitzinger will tell his tales. It is a soft, beneficent night.

Mutter Nacht im Mantel grau
Kommt zu Berg gestiegen-
Gras und Blumen trinken Tau,
Nächt'ge Vögel fliegen.
Silbersternlein halten Wacht
Gute Nacht!

Was euch kümmert, was euch plagt,
Lasst es talwSrts fahren-
So ihr Ghick im Herzen tragt,
Wollt es weislich sparen,
Bis die Sonne wieder lacht:
Gute Nacht!
***
Or again, an angry night. We are perched high on the huge western face of Montasch above the montrous abysses of the Clapadorie, in cramped quarters. We have come up from the Dogna ravine in search of the summit, but with other problems in mind for examination. Oitzinger and Pesamosca are with me, in a world of soaring crags rising out of gloomy depths before us, behind and above; beyond the abyss the jagged ridge of the Curtissons, a fantastic row of bayoneted peaks, glimmers m a pale, ghostly radiance of its own. Torn cloud-wracks race past us before the south-west wind. Not a star is to be seen. Summer lightning flashes almost incessantly, and from the far seaward distance comes a threatening roll of thunder. We press close up against the wall, in the poor shelter of an open cave. The wind howls in the- upper crags, driving into our fire, rending the flames; russet lights flicker a moment through our rocky nest, sinister shadows crowd and huddle past us. Do you see that dark form- What does it want, why is it groping here-
And Kotzi Tzigarin appears, a vision of giant stature, blood-stained, terrible of countenance, moustache behind his cars.
"Well, Herr Doktor, there was once a mastershepherd, one of those men who have neither house nor home, who spend summer in the mountains and forests, and winter by the sea, year in, year out.. Wandering shepherds, nomads. This man owned four thousand sheep, so naturally Kotzi Tzigarin took a big toll off him; he had to hand over any number of sheep, and never felt safe against further large demands. He lost heavily, and it rankled. One autumn, when he drove his flock back to sea-level, he took the bit between his teeth: he went off and told everything to the police in Philippopolis. He knew many of the gang by sight, and was to some extent familiar with their habits and movements, and their bolt-holes. Things soon got busy: brisk scouting, bloody encounters, prisoners taken, executions. And, would you believe it, next summer the man came back with his herd! Could he really have hoped that the matter would be forgotten- Or did he imagine that his information had been kept secret- The very first night, when he had just lain down on his plank-bed, with revolver and gun loaded beside him, the robbers appeared. They broke open the door with a few blows of the axe, overpowered him in a moment, and dragged him bound before their chief. The verdict was, hang the wretch by his feet to a tree, with his head in an ant-heap. A dreadful fate! That was Kotzi Tzigarin's punishment for treachery. Ja, mei Liaber!"
***
Bivouac on the cyclopean walls of Triglav, towards sundown, in this marvel of Julian architecture. We are camping in the highest dwarf pine, in the neighbourhood of the steep girdle called Pod Stena, "beneath the cliffs"; Oitzinger with me, and joie the Trentaner as host. Far below us is the land of promise of my young days, the legendary Trenta, where the infant Isonzo, bursting forth in rainbow vesture like the radiant vision of a dream, lifts its voice day and night with ceaseless ecstasy in the mysterious, entrancing song of Trenta. And here I will rest and look down to the peaceful valley of my heart's desire, to the old haunts of happiness. Right below us, a great waterfall thunders down the precipice, into the cavern hollowed deep in the avalanche cone at its foot. Beyond, in quiet solitude, lies the Zadnjica ravine: narrow, green meadows among ruin and desolation, beside dark, struggling, battle-worn forests, the upper slopes bearing everywhere the marks of this grim, agelong, unresting struggle for life. The pale, deep-hewn, battle-mented ridge from Razor to GolMica and Kukla faces us; to our left, Ozebnik, sombre, formless precipices shadowed in dwarf pine; and beyond, in a sea of light, rise the great shining summits of Trenta, the broad-based peak of jalouc and the haughty, defiant pyramid of Flitscher Grintouc. How beautiful is this place I A day of blessing goes down in a sunset of coloured glory beyond words. Golden and violet mists float still over valley and height. In the distance, the Kanin is aglow as in an unquenchable furnace. The dark shadows of evening have long sunk within the valley hollows, and yet, as if loth to turn from a last glance of farewell, it stands gazing fixedly after the sun, with roseate light about its head.
Now twilight creeps slowly up the mountainside. We draw more closely together. The first stars come quietly forth, heralding an unclouded firmament of rare purity and splendour. The rocks at our back are still warm from the sun, and it is good to rest against them. Our blazing fire shines calmly down upon the valley, beacon of a festive night high on the walls of Triglay, the smoke rising straight as a pillar.
But Oitzinger has a story to tell, and he must first get it out.
"Just think, Herr Doktor, a police patrol turns up at the sawmill, with heavy sacks across their shoulders.
" 'What have you got inside there-'
" 'Cabbages I Would you like some- Let's have a look.'
"Down comes a sack, and they open it-out roll bloodstained heads; brigands' heads, hewn off for exhibition in the market-place at Philippopolis. Ja, mei Liaber!"
"That'll do, Oitzinger, that'll do! It's such a lovely night. Tell us something cheerful and amusing!"
"Well then, I'll tell you how I once caught the Devil. I was in Galicia, and times were hard, work bad, altogether a desperate state of things. Then one evening I went to a Jewish farmer and asked him for a night's lodging. 'Certainly,' he said, and led me off to the stable, where I had merely to choose my bed. 'And may heaven reward you,' I said * Weary as I was, I threw myself down and tried to sleep. But I couldn't get any rest, I was pestered by nightmares. I was dreaming of the Devil. Then suddenly-what on earth is that- A horrible, heavy panting close by me, a scorching hellish breath all over my face! I leapt up in terror, both hands in front of me, and in pitch darkness I caught hold of two horns. 'Now I've got him, the Devil!' I said to myself. But it wasn't the Devil, just a good cow hunting forher stall!"
Oitzinger has talked himself tired, and soon his quiet breathing shows that he is asleep. To-night he will not dream of the Devil. A few more logs on the smouldering fire, and then I lean back in sleep. The mountain night hovers above us in a deep, beatific peace. High overhead the Great Bear moves in its quiet course; most beloved of all the host of heaven, it is to him that I always turn. The waterfall below fills the valley with its deep, all pervading roar, resonant, unceasing. It is part of the great pedal-point of the Trenta, a steadfast, unchanging voice echoing through the centuries in tumultuous power within these depths.
And as I lie and listen between waking and sleeping, it is as if straightway there came a movement in this mighty bass, as if it began, with solemn step of a fifth from tonic to dominant, to stride out from peak to peak; and then stepping further, in steady degrees, to pass first uphill, then slowly downward, till a last restful fifth led it down from the recaptured dominant to the deep tonic of the dark abyss. How well I know the brazen step of this bass! It is the bass motif with which Johann Sebastian's immortal organ Passacaglia opens, which ever renewed bears the whole massive, incomparable structure. To hear it now, and in this place! I listen with beating heart, stirred to the depths of my soul. What will come next-
And hark! the glimmering firmament above me breaks forth into music. As if from limitless heights with gold and silver rays of sound from some sublime orchestration, or as from the stop of a great organ of ethereal power and dominion, in overwhelming grandeur and celestial harmony rings out the divine variation of the Passacaglia. Built upon a ground bass rising from the dark lowland, with impetuous inrush ever reborn as it strides toward victory, it seizes the great vaults above precipice and naked height, from earth to starlit sky. The voice of its music rises in growing eagerness and ecstasy, till in one breathless transcendent outburst the miracle of the great fugue is born, and from its birth to the mighty, resonant, final chords moves through infinity of space, clear, liberating, triumphant.
It is thus that I listened to Bach's organ Passacaglia, on this last of my sacred Triglav nights, beside our bivouac fire. I have known many great concerts, many recitals of supreme merit, but none of them can be likened to the music of that night. It was not of this world.
***
Many climbers will share my experience that from the quick rhythm of fast walking or strenuous muscle-work, or merely from rapid breathing during an ascent or a scramble, melodies or rather motifs run in one's head, and are hard to drive away. They thrust their unwelcome company on us, perhaps even for a whole day. Fight against them, banish them, force yourself to choose some other tune; back they come unawares and fasten on their victim. Guido Rey has described this in lively manner. At times they may be a source of great discomfort. If it is some noble motif from the Eroica, or, shall we say, the drum beats in the Ninth Symphony scherzo, perhaps one does not resent their presence. One can almost take a pride in them, especially if an audience is at hand, for then one can pose as an authority on music. It is worse when they are of more plebeian birth, light and frivolous airs; worst of all, if they are common street ditties. And alas! this is by far the most frequent fate. Beethoven is proud and retiring, and only turns up occasionally; even Johann Strauss rarely favours us with one of his divine valses. It is almost always the ordinary street song which is at your service-cheerful, catchy, and complacent, admirably suited to your present rhythm, and in perfect harmony with the needs of the moment. How can you help it, if you have paid one or two innocent visits to comic opera or picked up a passing refrain in the street-
When I made my second ascent of the Aiguille du Geant, it happened that a well-known German mountaineer was on the slabs, with the two good Gentinettas from the Valais. During the previous winter an English operatic company had toured the world, and everywhere left unmistakable traces in the form of frolicsome music to charmingly foolish words. Everybody sang them in the streets, the very sparrows whistled them from the roofs. The party above me were possessed by an extremely effective, if utterly commonplace chorus from this music, and there being three very vocal demoniacs, the crags echoed unceasingly with their barbarous cries. The steeper and more difficult were the slabs, the more piercing became their strident song. It was enough to make one turn and run, and I wished myself far away in the solemn stillness of the Julians I Music in the mountains has its shady side.
***
Countless as are the bivouacs which I had with Oitzinger, they would certainly have been far more numerous had not my old friend and companion, Dr. GraziadioBolaffio, of beloved memory, felt such a strong aversion for a night in the open. Most of them were naturally at the foot of Wischberg or Montasch; several in the Karnica ravine, many at various spots in the Spranje. We had a memorable bivouac in the Grosse Naboisscharte before our first ascent of the north face of Wischberg, and a most romantic night beneath the northern precipices of Pic di Carnizza, at the place called Sopra le brame, which one may aptly describe "above all earthly wish and longing." And certainly in bivouac all terrestrial desires are hushed, for they live far below in the earthly life of everyday. How delightful were the many bivouacs in the highest corrie of the Kaltwasser ravine, beside our rushing upland brook, in the midst of gleaming alpenrose, to which my old heart still returns at times I One late evening we arrived there, tired and hungry, a party of three Oitzinger's cousin Karl was our third man, to act as porter up to the foot of the crags-and we had only four eggs left. "Jedem ein Ei," I pronounced quickly, "dem lichen Oitzinger aber zwei!" Karl Oitzinger, the cousin, was greatly impressed by this maxim, and made it a household word in the Seissera, although it had been current for centuries throughout the world. To this day he relates the story with the utmost pleasure to any one whom he can buttonhole in his lonely shepherd's life. "I was there myself at the time he adds proudly."
I have a vivid memory of two rough bivouacs with Oitzinger and Pesarnosca in the Grotto on the west face of Montasch, just below the forked gully on the Findenegg route, roughly at the point where you cross the west ridge when coming from Dogna or the north-west shoulder. The cave leads some way into the heart of the mountain, and contains two comfortable earthen platforms, providing a good if damp couch. It was used in old days, when Count Ronchi found shelter there in a night of storm which has now become a legend. We had brought up heavy loads of wood, no simple matter across the narrow sloping terrace which gives access from the Nevèa side. But there was one drawback: the smoke refused to drift away. To add to this, it became bitterly cold, and we were overtaken by a heavy snowstorm, which almost cut off our retreat next day. The unfortunate Pesamosca, who was wearing summer clothes, never forgot that night. We did everything possible for him, but he was frozen to the marrow. He endured it all without a word of complaint, in calm resignation, as if he were lying on a bed of roses.
I should like to relate one more bivouac, which Oitzinger experienced on his own. We often descended to Raibl, where we generally arrived late at night, sometimes with a long and strenuous day behind us. There I used to take a carriage to drive us down to Tarvis, catching the night train for Trieste, while Oitzinger made his way to Wolfsbach by Saifnitz. This time no carriage was available, and we had to cover the long distance at top-speed on foot to catch my train. That finished us off. I got into the train half dead, while Oitzinger continued his homeward journey. Half-way to Saifnitz fatigue overcame him, and he sat down for a short rest by the roadside. His head nodded, and he slipped into the ditch, and slept the long, deep sleep of the exhausted just. A blaze of morning sunshine roused him. For a long time he could not understand where he was, or how he had got into so Strange a bed. Finally he collected himself and his belongings, and walked slowly home, where he went properly to bed and slept far into the day. "Yes," I told everybody, "there's a bivouac fiend for you I Oitzinger always insists on bivouacking-if necessary in a roadside ditch!"
My nights in the heart of the mountains have left me with impressions which I would not readily have foregone. And my old theory may well be correct, that you can learn most about a mountain by sleeping on it. I feel that I have proved this up to the hilt. How often have I longed for their calm and peace, for the blessed freedom of their quiet distances and the cool, chaste breath of the upland night, from the discomfort of bad inns, in the torment of confusion and jostling, or the babble of card players in crowded huts; in the desolation of neglected cabanes or the squalor of mean and miserable chalets, through the rattle and jolting of overheated carriages on an endless night journey; and again in the troubles and worries of urgent, gruelling work, and sleepless nights of anxiety at home.
My men are sleeping. Far down in the valley the small lights go out one by one. Night passes over the hills. There has been disappointment and suffering, things have turned out differently from your hopes and expectations. Can you see no star in your sky, no light to light you on your way- Forget it all, have patience! See how the darkness of night envelopes us now, and so many riddles of life and sorrow and death hang in its sombre shades. Soon the herald sun will flash its beams over the expectant heights and hollows, and the troubled phantoms of night will be scattered as dust in the boundless triumph and hope of a new-born day.

CHAPTER NINE

WARTIME

It is not without reluctance that I summon the war memories of the following pages. Wherever possible, I prefer to blot out such things; they remind me too strongly of dark and difficult days, which I would gladly see sunk in oblivion. The older I grow the more willingly would I comprehend all men and all peoples in the same understanding and affection; and from a growing conviction I continue to cherish the ideal, that salvation lies not in jealous seclusion, nor in conflict and strife and dominance, but in the spirit of close co-operation, of a healthy, profitable, peaceful rivalry, whose aim is not power, but enlightenment, progress, and civilization. I am fully aware that these have proved difficult and perplexing paths to follow. But I cling with every confidence to the hope that, far distant as these better days now appear to be, they will eventually dawn.
It is my task to speak of those times and happenings. In the life story of Oitzinger they play such an important role that I cannot overlook them. The years 1914 to 1922 were without question the most exciting and dramatic period of his life, and it is essential that I should follow, at least in broad outline, the paths which brought him through every affliction and distress back to happiness and prosperity.
In late July of 1914, when the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia hung like a dark shadow over all Europe, I was leading a small party of young friends in the Wischberg group. I had engaged Oitzinger and Pesamosca, having something fairly big in mind; but the weather was so threatening that we were forced to abandon all high-flown plans, and merely circled the Wischberg from the Grosse Naboisscharte by the north-west terraces to the foot of the Mosesscharte, and then over it to the Findenegg hut. During the night the weather broke, and huge cloudbursts came down with lightning and thunder, covering the peaks with deep fresh snow. When we went down next day to the valley leading to Raibl we found it transformed into a rushing torrent; it was difficult to fight our way through, often waist-deep in the racing waters. To the uproar of the elements were added signs of another and far greater event. Agitated voices echoed through the valley, the forester calling for his assistants, wives searching for their husbands, mothers for their sons at work in the ravines or upper forests; cries from below, and answering shouts above. We could guess what was afoot: it was mobilization, war! Lower down the whole place was seething with excitement: flags on all sides, every valley in ferment, a huge wave of patriotic enthusiasm, all the tumult of a declaration of war. The dreadful fiery serpent of the world war had begun its sinister course. And may God have mercy on our souls!
Erwin Poech, my companion on the cast and north faces of the Kaltwasser Gamsmutter, was with us on that expedition. We others waited in Raibl for the bus from Flitsch, but he could not stay quiet. He ran straight on to Tarvis, since as an Einjährig-Freiwilliger he was due to report immediately in Villach. When we arrived at the station a troop train was just going. It was the Sth Jagers of Tarvis, bound probably for the Russian front. They greeted us from the train with singing and cheering. In the last coach Erwin was standing at the open window. He leant far out with arm upraised, and gave us his clear-voiced "Heil." I can still hear it. I never saw this fine young man again. He died for Emperor and country in 1915 on the Lipnik above the Golobar Planina in the julians.
During that autumn salvos of blasting could be heard daily in the valleys of Raccolana and Dogna. Wide motor roads were being made leading into the heart of the Western Julians. It was the business of the Austrian staff to find out whether large bodies of troops were being concentrated there. The colonel commanding the Canale valley approached Oitzinger with the suggestion that he should cross the frontier and inspect. Oitzinger refused pointblank, saying that it was not his job, and that he was neither suited nor trained for it. But he was given no peace: they badgered him incessantly, pointing out that he was an official guide, and therefore bound to make the proposed journey. Unfortunately he did not ask my advice. I should of course have sternly forbidden him, and so put a stopper on the whole affair. After a long struggle, he was forced to yield to pressure from above. Evidently he failed to grasp the full significance of his undertaking. It was only later that he realized this.
At the outset he was held up by the frontier guard on the Soindogna saddle. Where was he off to, and why- He had concocted a complete answer: Dr. Kugy had instructed him by telegram to go to Nevea and there wait for a friend, one Dr. F. of Trieste, whom he was to take up the Kanin. The good Oitzinger had not reflected that it would be an extremely uncomfortable thing for me to know that my name was involved.
"Where is the telegram-"
"At home. I forgot it."
"Pass, friend!"
He reached Dogna, where he had friends who knew me well. The most respected of them took him aside and asked very gravely: "What are you doing here-"
Oitzinger repeated his text.
"If you take my advice, go home at once. All sorts of things are going on here, and you may get into trouble. Be a sensible fellow and listen to me."
Oitzinger went on his way unperturbed, and came to Chiusaforte. The place was packed with soldiers. Every one stared in amazement at the remarkable figure of an Austrian guide with his badge plainly visible, but nobody stopped him. He went on, through Raccolana and Saletto, without hindrance.
At Piani, Osvaldo's home, he ran into the Carabinierl. Where had he come from- Where was he going, and why-
Oitzinger trotted out his text, and at that moment Osvaldo's daughter passed by and called out: "Buon giorno, Oitzinger!"
"You know the man-" the sergeant asked her.
"Certainly, it's Oitzinger, an old friend of my father's, Dr. Kugy's guide."
"Who's Dr. Kugy-"
"Il primo alpinista del mondo!"
Osvaldo then turned up and confirmed everything. So Oitzinger was allowed to proceed.
But at Nevèa, twenty minutes from the Austrian frontier, the trap closed. In reply to his text the frontier guard told him: "You stop here until Dr. F. arrives from Trieste. Then we can find out more."
Here also he had good friends who would gladly have helped, but nothing could be done. The attitude of the frontier guard was perfectly correct.
Oitzinger stood bewildered. He was as good as arrested. Of course Dr. F. would not come, and what then- He looked about him. Sentries everywhere, crowds of soldiers, and worst of all-a large and powerful police dog!
He realized that, all the same, he must run for it.
And now there follows a supreme instance of his cunning and presence of mind. He gave himself up cheerfully, and with a good grace. As the evening drew on he was not locked in a room, but was handed over to the charge of his fellow guide, Francesco Marcon, our old friend Checco of the "kruck, kruck" story, who was given clearly to understand that he was responsible for the man. At the same time, every one was on guard, and the dog was off his chain. Oitzinger lay sleepless on his bunk, working out a plan. The Raffil frontier was close by, distant perhaps ten minutes' quick run. But this, he knew, was held by sentries; and again, pursuit would certainly take this line. So he made up his mind to flee in the opposite direction, across the Kanin. Whatever the risk might be, it was a stroke of genius, for nobody would think of it. In daylight it is four or five hours' good going to the frontier, which runs along the crest. But in pitch darkness I He wrapped the point of his ice-axe in his pocket handkerchief for fear that it might strike a rock and betray him. Hiding his boots in his rucksack, he slipped his feet into Checco's scarpetti, so that the dog should not pick up the scent. It was all perfectly planned.
Some time after midnight he said to Checco: "I'm too excited to sleep. Who can tell if the gentleman will come to-morrow- Do give me a black coffee!" The kind-hearted Checco did so willingly, bustling about the hearth, and bending over the spluttering fire. Quickly snatching up his belongings, Oitzinger slipped, out into the pitchblack night. He ran his hardest, first over level pasture, then steeply uphill. After ten minutes he paused for breath and looked back. The alarm had been given, the camp lit up; he could hear shouts of command, and the loud baying of the dog. On again, like a hunted animal! Every moment he expected the dog to leap upon him, and he tightened his grasp on the axe. Another short pause for breath, and to get his bearings. The pursuit was off in the direction of the neighbouring frontier, towards the Raibl valley, and the baying of the dog came to him from afar. It had missed his tracks, and there was now a glimmer of hope! He hurried on silently, higher and higher through the dark shades of night. Not a pebble stirred beneath his feet. Kanin hut, glacier, snow gully, summit ridge! A narrow streak of light appeared in the cast, but he had no eye for the coming day with its promise of beauty. A rapid descent beyond, through the immense crater world on the eastward side, and in the first rays of sunshine he sighted the houses of Flitsch beneath him. He was safe!
When I met him next he was crestfallen and contrite, like a schoolboy caught red-handed; he was afraid that I should give him a proper dressingdown. I did so with the utmost conviction. "Well, what could I do, Herr Doktor- I know it was stupid, but I couldn't do otherwise. It won't happen again!"
In my book, Arbeit, Musik, Berge-Ein Leben, I have told how in June 1915, at the age of fifty-six, I volunteered for active service in the Alps, and went to the Western Julian front as Alpiner Referent. Anybody in my position would have done the same. Every honourable man is ready to defend his country in time of need. I cannot lay the least claim to heroism, where I was merely fulfilling my duty. Happy as I am in Italy, my second country, where I now enjoy full citizenship, I am glad to think that I risked health and prosperity, life and limb, in honour and reverence for the setting star and vanished fortunes of my first homeland, the old Austrian Empire.
Immediately after the outbreak of the Austro-Italian war, Wolfsbach, which lay almost on the frontier, was evacuated. The inhabitants were scattered over Carinthia. Oitzinger and his family went to Augsdorf, near Velden, on the W6rther See, taking their cattle with them. At such short notice it was impossible to take many provisions or household necessaries. Most of these were left in the abandoned house, and the more valuable objects were hidden in the cellar, to be fetched at the earliest opportunity. Unfortunately there was a flaw in his calculation. Detachments came through the village or to its neighbourhood, and the troops hunted with the utmost ingenuity for food. Nothing escaped them, and Oitzinger lamented the loss of salt pork, bacon, lard, and vegetables. His wife, his old mother, and his youngest son, Anton, were with him. Two of his sons, Ignaz and Johann, were on active service, Valentin the eldest was then, and is still, living in America. Oitzinger was forced to rely on scanty public assistance, which was a bitter blow for his independent spirit. However, when I visited him at Augsdorf he was in good spirits. In those days we reckoned on a short war, and then we should all begin again on the old lines with renewed strength. But fate ruled otherwise.
My very first duty involved me in a serious and highly dangerous undertaking. From the Alpine point of view it was a mere trifle. I had merely to walk up to the Grosse Naboisscharte and make certain observations. However, the Austrian positions were then just behind the village of Wolfsbach, roughly where the war cemetery now lies; the Italians were on the Soindogna saddle, and all the intervening ground was patrolled by both sides. I had to cross the Austrian wire entanglement in order to walk up the Seissera and Zapraha, and might easily fall into the hands of enemy patrols. I had been warned against this, and almost more against the Carinthian recruits, who by reason of their youth and lack of experience were quite incalculable, and so all the more dangerous. They shot at sight, I was told, without troubling to inquire first. Already, it appeared, many "regrettable incidents" had occurred.
Oitzinger had never served, nor was he called up even during the war. All the same, he at once declared his readiness to accompany me on my walk. That was just like him.
Late on the evening of July 1, 1915, we met in Wolfsbach, had a glass of wine with the officers on duty, and at 11 p.m. were led through the wire. We were unarmed, and naturally went without lanterns. The position of our pickets was known roughly to us, and we had password and papers. The need for constant cover had been impressed upon us. We walked slowly towards the Zapraha.
The sky was overcast, and it was so dark that we could hardly recognize our way. About midnight I heard my first heavy shell. It rose with a horrible screech above the Piper ridge, like some overladen cart creaking and groaning its laborious way uphill. Immediately afterwards we heard it burst near the fort of Malborgeth.
We slept for an hour in a hayshed, and then climbed up slowly and cautiously through the Zapraha. At times the crescent moon peeped out from the hurrying clouds, and in its faint gleam we caught sight of the pale summit rocks far above, with the flash of snow on the terraces of the Götterbänder, and the dark outline of the forested hills. The situation was new to me. Everything seemed strange and uncanny; never had a mountain night regarded me with such grave eyes. By daybreak we were in the Saifnitzer Karnica. The Grosse Naboisscharte was not then held by the Austrian troops, but we knew that there was an observation post above it on the Grosser Nabois. On the other hand, the Bärenlahnscharte was in the hands of the enemy. The north-west terraces of the Wischberg lead from one point to the other; and presumably Pesamosca wamerving as guide across the way. Seeing that he was as familiar as ourselves with this easy access to the Grosse Naboisscharte, we could not be sure of finding the pass unoccupied, and so we approached it with the greatest misgiving-myself from the left, Oitzinger from the right. When I bent over the pass and glanced quickly along its crest to the right, a dark face was watching me from the far side. I recognized Oitzinger's flashing eye. All was well I We sheltered from the icy wind behind some boulders and for nearly two hours studied the restricted but magnificent mountain landscape before us.
How stern are the mountains in wartime! No lantern lights your way, no bivouac fire blazes, no friendly light gleams quietly up from the sleeping valley; there are no distant solemn peals from the church steeples in the awakening dawn, nor the tinkling of many cow-bells from the meadows. The pastures are silent and forsaken, the stalls deserted the gaping doorways speak of poverty, oppression, and bitter need. Often the doors are torn away or burnt. Gone are the cheerful voices and the laughter. No shepherd's cry is heard, no shout from the fullness of man's heart. Gladness has fled from the land. Above, in the corries, are scattered panic-stricken chamois. You cannot rejoice in the light of day, nor hail the divine splendour of Nature. You lie hidden behind the summit boulders, peering about you for the enemy's position, seeking for means to compass his destruction. And yet over there lie men, true likewise to their duty, who love their country as you do, with the same right and the same heartfelt devotion.

From beyond comes the chatter of machine-guns rifle fire reverberates a hundredfold through the mountains. Echo has a busy time. Now she returns the shot with a single mighty burst, now like the roar of God's thunder she sends it circling from crag to crag, till it seems to die away in the far distance; and again she renews the sound in tumultuous crescendo to a breathless fortissimo, ceasing with dramatic abruptness. Dreadful scenes, a dreadful concert. Peace on earth to men of goodwill!
While we were returning through the Saifnitzer Karnica, and were just beginning to relax into a more comfortable frame of mind after the excitements of the night, we noticed soldiers on the Karnicascharte. At first we were uncertain whether they were friend or foe, but finally Oitzinger's sharp eyes recognized them for Carinthian recruits. Three of them at once began to climb down rapidly towards us, shouting something which we could not understand. It soon struck me as strange that they moved in short rushes, taking cover from boulder to boulder, and pointing at us with their rifles from behind the boulders. I heard Oitzinger, who was about a hundred paces away from me, call out repeatedly: "Don't shoot I We're Austrians!" Suddenly they leapt out from behind a rock, rushed forward, and to my astonishment delivered a bayonet charge on myself, who was waiting for them with quiet curiosity and without fully realizing what they were about. They took me for a disguised spy, and were afraid that there might be Alpini hidden in the dwarf pine near by, ready to open fire at any moment. They were in a frenzy of excitement and fear, a state of mind for which their over-ingenious captain, who had stayed up above, was responsible.
A later and less serious version of the story states that I owed my life then to the uncertainty of the recruits, whether to "stick" me first or "shoot me up." The truth is that I was saved only by my complete calm, which never deserted me for a moment, a quality which is second nature to those who have been through many dangers. In the twinkling of an eye there was one bayonet point at my chest, and two others from behind against my ribs. It is a peculiarly ticklish feeling!
"Hands up!"
"But whatever's the matter- Are you gone mad-" I said soothingly, and felt in my coat pocket for my identification papers.
"Stop! Don't move, or we'll shoot!"
They imagined I had a pistol there.
Then Oitzinger complicated matters. "You Sakramenter! You Lausbuben, you idiots! I'll show you how to treat my master!" he shouted across, and the good fellow came leaping over in great strides, with the evident intention of snatching away their rifles.
I realized the gravity of the danger. At that moment my life hung literally by a thread. The excited young corporal in front of me had his finger on the trigger, and no doubt the same thing was happening behind my back. One more movement and they would have fired. A brisk shout from me stopped Oitzinger just in time.
"Why not ask me for the password- And have a look at my papers!"
But it seems that Oitzinger's racy Carinthian oaths had even greater effect. The floodtide of their agitation began slowly to ebb. They listened to my calm words, and with this I had won the game. Finally the men begged my pardon, pleading that they were not to blame, as they had merely obeyed orders.
The five of us lay down on a grassy bluff, and I brought out cigars as a sign of general harmony. Mine tasted extraordinarily good. Better a good cigar in the mouth than three polished bayonets against your body!
We parted the best of friends, and I sent my compliments to their captain. Before they turned swiftly uphill, the young warriors consoled us with the statement that we should undoubtedly be captured by enemy patrols; there were swarms of them lower down. It was, therefore, with a certain hesitation and a very odd feeling that we continued our descent. But peace and silence reigned in the Zapraha woods. When we emerged from them we disdained further cover and walked in full view of Köpfach and Mittagskofel in a bee-line across the meadows and the white scree-bed of the Seissera torrent, straight for our positions. So ended that unforgettable 2nd of July.
As I have said, Oitzinger played a splendid part in the task of making a route, free from enemy observation, up the north side of the Wischberg, for the safety of our pickets. From the very outset the danger of lightning on the Wischberg caused me grave anxiety. Readers of my mountain book will know how serious this danger is on Julian summits.
One night, during a heavy thunderstorm, the whole summit of the Wischberg was surrounded by some strange electric fire, with aerolites passing over it. The garrison was in the utmost danger, yet they held their ground bravely. Men looked to me, as Alpiner Referent, for help, but my knowledge was inadequate. Then I heard that a certain famous scientist, Professor Benndorf of Graz University, was in the neighbourhood. He was with his battery on one of the Raibl peaks, and knew just what was wanted. On his advice, a Faraday net was laid over the whole summit, from which seven lightning conductors rose, all connected with each other. The earthing cable was led down to the water of the Seebach. This solved the problem, and the danger of lightning was exorcised once and for all. The remains of this net and the lightning conductors are visible to this day on the top of the Wischberg.
When the incendiary shells fell on WolEsbach in 1916, Oitzinger wanted to join battle with them for his two houses. But he was not allowed to fight the flames, and indeed it would have been out of the question, the danger was too great. At that time he and his wife were living near the village, having obtained a special permit through my agency from the brigade command. Some sacks of threshed corn were still there on the ground floor, and he had hopes of saving these. But the flames spread like lightning, and nothing could be done. Everything was destroyed. The war had indeed cost him dear. His house again burnt to the ground, all that he had built up in a long life of toil buried beneath a pile of smouldering ruins I But his spirit remained unbroken. Surely better days must be in store for him.
Fate then led us far from each other, and I lost sight of him for more than two years. He had moved from Augsdorf farther into Carinthia. Here he struggled through life as best he could, living from hand to mouth. I was now surrounded by a whole company of splendid young mountaineers, and could leave him in peace. In August I9 I7 the fortunes of war took me from Tarvis to Soca, the modern Sonzia, and in the autumn of the same year to the neighbourhood of Feltre, where I finally settled down to work at Tomo, above Feltre. But these journeys of mine have no further place here. At length I recognized that my Alpine mission was ended, and on July 2, 1918, I took my departure for home. I was in fact no longer fit for big Alpine service. Three exhausting years at the front had, with advancing age, taken a heavy toll of my physical strength. One is apt to forget that one is no longer young, and I was thoroughly tired out. However, I hope that in so far as it was possible I left behind me a memory of friendship; certainly when I left the district many genuine good wishes accompanied me. The principle that in war there shall always be a certain nobility of conduct towards friend and foe alike, and, above all, towards the local population in their great distress, has always been an article of faith for me. It is true that this attitude, when translated into fact, did not always meet with a sympathetic response from a few petty-minded or over-zealous individuals, and in certain cases it led even to considerable friction. But I had no need to feel disconcerted; I went on my way at the bidding of my conscience.
One small incident holds a special place in my memory. At Cesio Maggiore, in Venetia, where we were in winter quarters, I received orders from my divisional commander, in view of the numerous requisitions of the moment, to fix with every peasant how many milch cows, how much food and other provisions must be kept as a guaranteed minimum for home use, special attention being paid to the needs of old people and children. I was glad to co-operate in a measure which was as humane as it was economically wise. Going from house to house, from farm to farm, with a great following of gendarmes and other personnel, I made my calculations and fixed the quota, which was then posted up on the house itself. In the course of my journey I came to a large isolated farm. It was closed and I knocked on the door. Nothing stirred. After a short wait I knocked again. Then both doors were opened from inside. In the large hall stood the combined families in a wide semicircle, the many children in front. A very old man with long white curls, evidently the grandfather and patriarch, stepped towards me with a certain solemnity, and asked me what I wanted. I explained, whereupon he invited me to sit down and begged leave to offer me a glass of wine. As I was on duty I refused with thanks, and in a short time the business was happily settled to our mutual satisfaction. On our departure he led us to the gate. Here I gave him my hand, asked him not to trouble himself further, and wished him health and good fortune. He thanked me again, and as he said good-bye he added:
"I hope, sir, that you will come back after the war. So, a rivederci!"
"Well, you know," I replied, "we are both of us fairly old fellows. And I'm afraid you and I have to be rather careful with the words 'a rivederci.'"
"Giusto! You're quite right, sir. Well, then, a rivederci in paradiso!" he answered with all sincerity.
I agreed heartily, and am counting on this Wiedersehen.
I was in rather low spirits on the journey home from the war. After three years of unbroken service this return to uncertain conditions of civilian life seemed strange and confusing. I was oppressed with dark forebodings and full of anxiety for the future. I travelled by Belluno to Pieve di Cadore, then by the breakneck light railway to Toblach, now at a snail's pace, now with a breathless rush downhill, constantly derailed and often in danger of capsizing; and so to Villach and Tarvis. In the golden-green chestnut groves of the Piave landscape a great homesickness overcame me for the dark, incenseladen pine woods of the Julian Alps. I went straight to the Scissera. Would Oitzinger be there-
I found Wolfsbach blown to pieces, levelled to the ground, a gloomy, charred ruin just as I had last seen it, with a whole forest of tall stinging nettles rampant over it, and here and there a young, striving elder tree between the ruins. The village street was deserted, but every-where among the wreckage one heard the sound of hammering. The inhabitants had returned in the spring of 1918. As there was no money for reconstruction, each man was busy with a temporary shelter for the winter. Oitzinger had also come back, they told me, but he was not in the village, he was at work on his meadow by the outlet of the Zapraha, on the "Oitzingeralm."
I went in search of him, past the war cemetery, by the old familiar paths. As I drew near to his shed the sound of his axe came from it. He was busy building, and I heard stroke upon stroke and the splintering of wood. The brave man was indeed building a new life for himself. In answer to my call he stepped out, axe in hand. He was somewhat worn and dilapidated, grizzled and much aged, and his face was deeply lined. For three long years he had been a fugitive from his native soil; his eldest son, Valentin, away in some uncertain fate beyond the great waters; Ignaz, the second son, a prisoner of war; "Prince John," the third, on active service with the Seventh, in the trenches from which I had just come. His home was destroyed, his property neglected and trodden underfoot. Such things can sap a man's courage and kill his spirit!
We shook hands warmly and sat down on the grass to relate our adventures. Wischberg and Montasch regarded us from their radiant heights, and about us the forests of Seissera and Zapraha stood clothed in the glory of summer. When I reminded him quietly that he was still the richest farmer in Wolfsbach, that all would again be well, and that if he were in need, and I had anything left, I would gladly help him, a light came into his eyes, and he showed his white teeth with the smile of old days. Then he pointed to the axe in his hand. He was building over there, he said, a stable for his cattle, which he had managed to bring back, and a makeshift winter dwelling for himself and his family, so he must now get back to work. We would meet again in the village that evening.
I bade him farewell, and the sound of busy hammering from his shed followed me far on my way. As I went past the cemetery I fancied that I could still hear it. Axe in hand, to build life anew! This was the lesson which I took with me that day, deeply graven in my heart, from this mountain village of the Julians. I recollected the words which Anzengruber puts into the mouth of Vroni at the close of Meineidbauer: "Aus is's und vorbei is's. Da sein neue LEut'und die Welt fanat erst an!" ("The old order changeth, yielding place to new.")
Poor, simple-minded Julius! Little did you imagine then how many blows of axe and hammer you would both have to wield, Oitzinger and yourself alike, before you managed at last to land quietly and resignedly in a modest place in the sun. Nor have you become neue Leut', but, alas! have remained as you were of old, in this struggling, new-born world.

CHAPTER TEN

RECONSTRUCTION

WAR was over. The gracious sun of peace rose upon valley and hill. But conditions remained insecure, and a great deterioration had set in, which naturally affected these remote mountain valleys to a peculiar degree. For a long time there could be no thought of building up the ruins, and the village inhabitants lived scantily in their makeshift dwellings or in the decaying war barracks near by. Oitzinger remained in his meadow in the remote Seissera; on his feet from before sunrise till late at night, day in, day out, working incessantly. Provisions were very scarce, and his cattle received the first consideration.
One night two cows were stolen from his stable. A complaint was lodged, but without result, so he set about looking for them himself. His suspicions fell on a neighbouring valley, one of the wildest in the Julians, whose inhabitants had a bad reputation among the local mountain folk. Thanks to his wide circle of acquaintances and popularity, he was able with great trouble to trace his cows and locate the thief; but it required great perseverance and many wearisome journeys before he could recover his property.
Was it an act of vengeance which followed, a fresh plot to steal his cattle, an attempt on his life, or merely intimidation- Shortly afterwards, one pitch-black night, heavy rifle fire was suddenly opened on his shed; sharp bursts of fire from two rifles in quick succession from the direction of the river. Intimidation, was it- In a moment he had the light extinguished and the fire out, to render the target invisible. Then he snatched up his rifle and unhesitantly returned the fire. To this day the hut bears traces of well-aimed bullets. His brave wife soon received a wound in the hand, which was, fortunately, not serious. Oitzinger fired over two hundred shots that night, and his rifle repeatedly became red-hot in his hand. The flashes gave him a point to aim at, though the thieves often changed their position, shooting from the cover of trees. He made sorties, but he was only one against two skilful marksmen. Once an assailant rushed close by him, and he caught the gleam of a white shirt in the darkness, but refrained from shooting. He was not certain enough, and knew that if he missed he was a dead man. So the battle raged, hour after hour. At the first glimmer of dawn his wife crept out cautiously at the back and hurried secretly across the meadows down to Wolfsbach for help; but before this arrived the thieves had abandoned the fight and vanished into space. Their identity was never established, nor did they ever return. "Ja, mei Liaber!"
Readers of Arbeit, Musik, Berge may recall how I suffered under the bludgeonings of the evil post-war period. So the next years passed without my seeing Oitzinger. But in 1922, when I had just made a slow recovery, he sent a message to me through my young mountaineering friends. Partly from the official compensation money, partly by his own effort, he had rebuilt his houses in Valbruna, and they were now finer than ever; it appeared that the north corner-room on the first floor of No. 25, where the family lived, was now called the Kugy Room, and was waiting for its master's holiday. I must certainly come, he said, otherwise he would fetch me himself; in which case I must look out for trouble!
When I did come, the good man's pleasure was touching. Such things cannot be put into words.
After this, I was his guest every summer, staying for two months and sometimes even for three in his fine new house, in the friendly corner-room which many of my visitors there know. The war had incapacitated me for climbing; but though big things were too much for me, I could still sometimes manage walks up the Luschari or as far as the pastures, or to the habitats of favourite flowers. He was no longer a guide; not that this was beyond him, but his whole energy was applied to farming. He had thrown off his years, recovering the old buoyant cheerfulness and his divine gift of humour, and in spite of very difficult times had again risen to his pre-war prosperity. His labour was blessed as in former days: ploughland, meadows, and forests were in splendid condition, and he had twenty head of cattle. His wife was tireless, efficient, and thrifty as ever; his strong, kind-hearted sons were back at their posts, Ignaz home from captivity, johann safely returned from active service, and Anton, the youngest, was now old enough for farm work.
"Oitzinger," I said, after my first summer sojourn with him, "we must settle accounts. I am heavily in your debt."
"In my debt- But everything's settled!"
"How is that- I really can't remember."
"Just think it over, Herr Doktor," was his brief answer.
I thought it over, but without success. However, I realized that I was not to ask any more questions. There are some things that you cannot pay for in cash; the best service goes unpaid, and you have only to say a genuine heartfelt "Thank you." But it needs the right man for this.
So I tried to be of service in some other way, and by masterly wiles and more or less ingenious subterfuge I succeeded now and then in finding a home with him for this or that trifling gift. It happened that I once brought him a modern picture of the Madonna. He was delighted with it.
"It shall go above my bed!" he said with great satisfaction.
Encouraged by my success, I came back with two prints of the Madonna by Italian old masters.
"Perhaps these will do," I suggested, "for the rooms of No. 46, where there aren't any pictures yet."
"No," he decided, "that would be a pity, they are so beautiful. I won't give them away. They shall go above my bed!"
So far, so good. Next time I returned with Raphael's "Madonna della Sedia."
"How do you like this picture-"
"Lovely I It'll go above my bed!"
Another time it was a glorious big Sistine Madonna.
"Do you like it-"
"Herrgott, that's the finest of all! It'll go above my bed!"
And so it went on for a long time, till finally he slept beneath a grove of Madonnas, who gazed down upon him in heavenly purity and tenderness. Only two secular pictures hung with them: my portrait, and a photograph of himself, which the King of Saxony had taken. But even our two faces were transformed by the grace and distinction of our surroundings, and took on an air of gentle piety!
***
With his strong sense of justice Oitzinger could be most contentious, once he saw his rights threatened. It was vain for me to preach that costly lawsuits should be avoided, and that a lean compromise was always better than a fat lawsuit, especially for a farmer. Although he was certainly not at heart a litigious man, he found himself repeatedly involved in cumbrous legal proceedings. If these went against him, as unfortunately they often did, he said honestly: "You are quite right, Herr Doktor. Next time I will be more sensible!"
But there was always the danger that next time he would again be carried away by his excitable temperament.
I never ceased to marvel at his unselfishness and generosity, though this sometimes brought about a clash of principle with his wife's thriftiness. Live and let live, was his motto; nobody ever appealed in vain to his help and charity, and no one went hungry from his door. But if anybody came to him with an unjust demand or trespassed on his rights, his blood boiled, and he would send him packing.
On one occasion an old Wolfsbach peasant took a step which brought serious damage to his children, in fact plunged them in poverty. Oitzinger's upright nature was greatly distressed by this, and he felt the deepest sympathy for the victims; but his arguments made no impression on the old peasant. I happened to be sitting at the window of my room in Oitzinger's house, busy writing. Suddenly I caught the distant sound of his voice uplifted in anger, like the clatter of falling stones. For a whole hour he stormed away without ceasing.
"What's the matter with your husband-" I called down to Frau Oitzinger. "Why is he so upset-"
"He's giving it to the old man!"
At last he returned and came up to my room in a lather: "I've just been giving it hot and strong to the old scoundrel. Come along, Herr Doktor, it's time for a drink."
And we went off and had a drink, but not to the health of the old Malefizkerl!
***
The constant encroachments and flooding of the Seissera, torrent were a perpetual trouble to Oitzinger. He met it bravely, with prudence and promptitude. Often standing waist-deep in the dark swirling waters, he battled against the onslaught of the swollen torrent, striving feverishly to dam its course with earth or stones, planks, beams, or felled pine trees. For all this, he could not always save stretches, and sometimes whole acres, of valuable meadow and ploughland from being washed away. It was a moving sight to watch his patience and resignation as he set himself to clear the desolate, silted ground from the burden of rubble and boulder, spreading over it cartload upon cartload of good soil and manure, if there was a chance of making even one small portion of his wasted land living and fertile again. The lot of the mountain peasant is indeed heavy, and his many enemies strong and inexorable.
***
During those years my young friends Albert Hesse and Vladimir Dougan, both admirable mountaineers, would often drive to Valbruna ' where they were busy solving one by one all the great problems (most of them very difficult climbs) which we had left untouched in the Western Julians. If it happened to be early summer or autumn, when I was not on holiday in Valbruna, there was always a place for me in Hesse's fast car. I welcomed these opportunities of seeing Oitzinger again, and our arrival meant a great day for him. My friends would go up the same afternoon to some bivouac, while I remained in the village to await their triumphant return next day; if he were free, I could have a good chat with Oitzinger, preceded by a drink-in moderation, let me add. We had so much to talk about. Almost thirty years of eventful companionship in the mountains lay behind us, and I was greatly interested in the progress of his affairs; he had always something new to relate, though the planning of expeditions was a thing of the past. We were both, so to speak, on retired pay. Politics alone were never discussed; they were as distasteful to him as to myself, and may they go to the devil. I have the utmost pity for those poor men who sit in café or beer-garden parcelling out the world. Have they nothing better to do-
There are thousands of healthier and more cheerful topics.
One glorious day in early summer we drove again to Valbruna. Even before we pulled up I noticed an unwonted stir in front of the house. People were hurrying in and out, and rushing by with buckets of water. Frau Oitzinger met me in the hall wringing her hands. He had just been brought home. His steer had attacked him suddenly while watering, had thrown him high in the air, attacked him again and ripped open one thigh with his sharp horns. His life hung in the balance. Our unexpected arrival, and, above all, Hesse's fast car, were his salvation. My two friends raced down to Tarvis, and returned in double-quick time with the surgeon. An immediate operation was essential; in the hurry the surgeon had brought only the barest necessities, just some bandages, and, mercifully, plenty of iodine, with which he painted the wound as best he could. There was no brandy, and he had to manage with methylated spirit. While he examined the wound, and washed and stitched it up, I put my arms firmly round Oitzinger, who was groaning and twisting with the pain. I can recommend this method. His courage was pathetic. The operation lasted nearly two hours, forty-two stitches being needed. For some days he hovered between life and death, but then he took a turn for the better, and was out of danger. However, he was forced to lie up for weeks and months, as complications set in. His old friend Jakob Mikosch took over the nursing in a most devoted way. He changed the dressing with his own hands daily, sat for hours watching quietly by the bedside, and did everything to help his restless patient, longing for liberty and work, over the long days, weeks, and months of convalescence. Finally, with the aid of a distinguished Viennese doctor,* and a course of baths at the neighbouring sulphur-spring of Lussnitz, Oitzinger completely recovered his health. But it had been touch and go.
***
The post-war period has brought one benefit to Valbruna, its recognition as an excellent summer resort. To my mind, it is the most beautiful, not merely in the Western julians, but in all Friuli. It has the Hôtel Seissera, and a few simple inns close by; the rooms let by the villagers are scrupulously clean, with willing and attentive service. A new, if modest, source of income has been opened up for the village. Winter also contributes its part. Valbruna and the Seissera valley are famous ski-ing

* My nephew, Dr. Franz Högler.

grounds, where the snow long remains powdery, to the delight of the ski-runner. I hope that Valbruna itself may grow into a "Paradise for skiers," like so many places discovered and developed in the Alps during the last decade.
Oitzinger, too, put the rooms of his two houses at the disposal of visitors, in summer and winter alike. Many of his guests will have happy memories of his simple, positive character, ennobled by a life of toil, and of the way he went quietly and simply about his business, with an eye for every need; of the tireless, devoted service of Frau Oitzinger, and the gentle, almost submissive kindness of his two sons; and of the evening hours on the bench in front of the house, when the cattle returned from the pastures with a festive tinkling of bells, and one watched this full-fed, contented "Oitzinger family," with the herd boy in front, proudly cracking his whip as he drew near to his steaming bowl of milk and polenta. And lastly they will remember Wolfi the watchdog. leading the way with cheerful barking as the men set out to work, and just as cheerfully bounding before his new friends to the Trattoria Gelbmann, where the wily fellow was sure of one roll, and perhaps more, of fine white bread.
Oitzinger had naturally long surrendered his guide's permit. Nevertheless, he was destined once more to display his brilliant qualities as guide. My young friend Dr. Paul von Kaltenegger, author of the admirable "Julian Alps" section in the latest edition of the Hochtourist, was very anxious to make one expedition with him. His wish was amply fulfilled. As I was not there, I cannot myself describe Oitzinger's last great climb, but it happens that Dr. von Kaltenegger has published a lively description of it in the Österreichische Alpenzeitung, which I here introduce with his kind permission. In the following chapter he shall speak to you himself.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ANTON OITZINGER'S LAST CLIMB
BY DR. PAUL VON KALTENEGGER

WHAT the Carrels and Maquignaz were in Val Tournanche, what Emile Rey was to Courmayeur, the Payots and Ravanels to Chamonix, the Almers at Grindelwald, the Burgeners for Saas and the Innerkofiers for Sexten, such were Andreas and joie Komac in the Trenta valley, and Anton Oitzinger in Wolfsbach.
Such, and even more. It was not merely that he was the only man of his village and neighbourhood qualified to force his way sure-footed through the roughest wilderness of his familiar mountains; he was also a man whose like is not easy to find. Andreas Komac and Anton Oitzinger, the truest of the true; that great phrase, a heart of gold, so often vainly lavished, is here not out of place.
How could I, who had prowled about the Julians from childhood days, have failed to learn the names of Kugy's famous paladins- Relatives and acquaintances had climbed with these guides, and not a year passed without rumour of new triumphs by Kugy and his trusty servants. In those days, however, the deed was proclaimed with less grandiloquence and in less obtrusive fashion than now; the nine days' wonder of the "last Alpine problem" was a thing of the future, and there was generally a higher standard of truth, a nobler outlook, and greater modesty than one finds to-day.
I knew the two Komacs and Oitzinger, Pesamosca, and old Bobek, and often stared openly at them as they set out for new deeds, or when, with Kugy in their midst, they returned victorious to the quiet village.
Would I have given anything then to be with them on the rope- Far from it! The guideless arrogance of my eighteen years would never have countenanced this. And this arrogance of mine was fortified beyond danger by the slenderness of my purse. I cannot claim to have made virtue of necessity; but I am convinced that with many of this generation the virtue of the old guideless climbers has changed into necessity. May it not be that many of them pose as Purtschellers and Zsigmondys merely because they cannot pay for a guide-
I myself, however, am neither a Purtscheller nor a Zsigmondy, if only because, apart from other reasons, I have actually once climbed with a guide, in fact, with Anton Oitzinger. Perhaps the extreme right wing (or is it the left-) will recognize that there are extenuating circumstances, if I put forward the plea that Oitzinger had then long ceased to wear his guide's badge.
For many years after the war I had often spent nights with friends beneath Oitzinger's hospitable roof; many an evening I had sat in his comfortable kitchen, listening to the counsels of himself and Kugy for the coming day. It was now the year 1927, and a glorious summer. My friend Egbert Neugebauer, companion on many mountains, was at the end of his brief spell of leave. The Karnica Tower with Dougan occupied half a day, and now I was left moping and forsaken in Wolfsbach. Then the thought struck me: would Oitzinger possibly be available for one of the climbs of his great days- There was something in the idea! He would gladly have accompanied me, he said, but haymaking was in full swing on his big meadow, and not a man could be spared during the week; and on Sunday he had to go to headquarters about compensation for wood, which the troops had requisitioned during manoeuvres. But in the end he managed to arrange things otherwise, and we agreed that I should report at his chalet on Saturday afternoon, and we would be off at crack of dawn on Sunday. The programme was already fixed: Montasch from the north by the Brdo ridge, descent to the Parte di Mezzo alp, then up to the Forca de lis Sieris and down the north side back to the Seissera. It was certainly not an expedition of special difficulty according to modern standards, but just a typical strenuous climb up and down, probably the equivalent of two normal days. I was inclined to be anxious about it. No doubt Oitzinger was technically well up to the expedition, even in his sixty-seventh year; he was as lean as a rail, active as a cat, and sure of himself on rock and snow. But might it not be too much for the old man- Nine thousand feet of ascent, and then descent! Let me confess here and now that my fears were routed, and I can only wish that every young mountaineer who intends to climb till the evening of his days may carry his old bones no worse than did Oitzinger when he last mounted the throne of his native kingdom.
We started at 3 a.m. Oitzinger was no scorcher, but the expedition being long, indeed very long, he set a good pace from the beginning, and even with my long legs I had to stride out to keep up. The weather was doubtful: grey mists clung to the ridges and looked like cheating our expectation of a glorious sunrise. During our walk up the Seissera I glanced at my companion. Mountain and valley were emerging from the shadows of dawn into the light of day, and with them appeared the figure of Oitzinger, in a somewhat remarkable outfit. In his right hand he carried what seemed like an unsuccessful cross between a ski-stick and an alpenstock, with a rounded point, apparently more suited to the conquest of the Luschari. On his feet were shoes with smooth studs, which looked certain to slip, even on any gentle slopes. From the pocket of his rucksack a pair of suspicious-looking indoor slippers peeped over half-way out, evidently designed for the part of Kletterschuhe. I looked with pride on my Swiss ice-axe; the sharp hobnails of my Goiserer crunched firmly over the white gravel; and the thought of my trusted Manchonsohlen in the depths of my rucksack gave me every reason for self-confidence.
Strawberry eating and big expeditions do not agree, at least not simultaneously; and as I could do the former without Oitzinger, but not the latter, I turned away with a watering mouth from that fair enticing fruit, as we went past the ruined hunter's cabin towards the Spranje, before bending right handed into the Cianerca. On almost every expedition in the Julians it is a very long journey to the foot of the climb. One starts from low down, and the summits are nearer three than two thousand metres high. We went at an even pace over the grass-grown screes of the lower corrie. A steep belt of broken rocks, giving an easy scramble, brought a pleasant relief from the monotony. Now came the crossing of a torrent. Swollen by the downpour of the last few days, its waters were racing down over steep, smooth drops. Oitzinger jumped boldly over the obstacle. But alas! one of the felt slippers tucked so precariously into the outside pocket had lost its sense of attachment to the rucksack, and was now dancing merrily downward in rivalry with the foaming eddies. Oitzinger raced after the shoe, and as it was caupht in a hollow and was now circling round and round, the unfortunate owner was able, with some trouble and at the cost of wet feet, to rescue the truant from a watery grave.
During this exciting incident we had quite forgotten about the weather. The clouds had gathered lower and lower. When we reached the upper Gentian corrie we were greeted by heavy rain, and while cowering beneath an overhanging boulder had ample time to take counsel whether or not to abandon the climb. There was still plenty of time to turn back, we decided, and as soon as the rain lessened, to cease altogether after an hour, we continued the ascent. It is a beautiful traverse towards the Gentian gap, with open views on both sides as you climb up the steep, turf-covered Brdo ridge. The summit ridges were still hidden from view, but we watched the mysterious vision of the mists playing about the fantastic towers near the Forca del Palone, and boiling in the uncanny depths where the ridge falls towards the Kuglic. Through these fearsome cliffs the Italians had constructed a path in wartime, and here and there a bleached remnant of rope peers out of the treacherous abyss, to guide the wanderer. But we had no intention of diving into the bottomless abode of mist, 'we were in search of light on the cloudy hills. Unfortunately, there was little light to be thrown on our situation, and if you rule out romance, all that remained was that we were just climbing up through the mist, and searching for our way after the classic model of the famous mule. Even Oitzinger,. who knew the mountain like the back of his hand, needed some thought before he could discover the correct lodgment on the rocks, so limited was the range of vision. In spite of my lively protests he put me carefully on the rope. (I dare not think what would have happened if I had proposed to take the lead!) It is a pleasant and by no means easy scramble. The three steep places, which in former days caused so much difficulty, are now somewhat scantily versichert: just a vertical rope, two pitons, and nothing more-but alas! quite enough. Even so, these places are not simple. I believe that even the most difficult step (the second) can be overcome without a fixed rope, and even without the help of a shoulder. Actually, the fixed rope is an obstacle to a direct ascent. The highest step remains to this day the most awkward. It is a matter of climbing to the left out of a cave-like recessed chimney, and circumventing the overhanging exit by a bulging wall. Close attention to balance, and clever use of hand- and foothold, is essential for climbing this place, though it is not in itself formidable. Perhaps some of our young heroes will chuckle over the account of the first party, in the year I892, where it is described as the most difficult climb in the Julian Alps. But let them go there in November, as did Kugy and the two Kornacs, when the rocks are nicely glazed. That will make them chuckle! There could be no greater folly than to murmur here a sympathetic sic transit gloria mundi. Even to-day it is a question of touch and go, if you find the peak clothed with all the terrors of its armoury. The rest of the chinb is not difficult, but enough to maintain one's interest. The Cima Verde welcomed us with a shroud of mist, and before long we were shaking hands on the summit. My climb with Anton Oitzinger was an accomplished fact.
The uncertain weather, and the thought that the greater half of the journey was still to come, got us soon under way again. It is true that we had moved rapidly-leaving out the enforced halt in the rain and the adventure with the torrent, we had taken hardly more than five hours from meadow to summit-but experience proves the -advisability, especially on long expeditions, not merely of keeping to the time-table, but where possible of having a small reserve of time in hand, to be used in case of need or for dalliance on the homeward journey. We descended by the Verdi. Traces of the war were still to be seen every-where. rained barracks, fragments of rope, shattered concrete blocks, and here and there an' old ropeway stanchion. Roof-felt and old telephone wire are a disSgurement of nature, and the innocent climber must beware of stumbling on one of the treacherous hand grenades which are still to be found in plenty in the former war zone. Presumably the explosive has become harmless from the weathering of long years, but the devil is always on the watch, and prevention is better than cure. The path (yes, the path I) over the Verdi is now a comfortable scree-run. Gone are the small grassy cushions which, though not difficult, used to call for a sure foot in descent. The coming and going of many feet during the war have trampled out every vestige of soil and vegetation. A short, traditional halt on the Forca dei Disteis, one glance down into the dread inferno, and we raced cheerfully over a carpet of pinks and vanilla orchids down to Parte di Mezzo, athirst for milk. They had the impudence here to charge two lire a litre, but we swallowed the insult and paid up.
And now began the most exhausting part of the day. As if out of petulance, the sun had scattered its veils of cloud to the four winds, and toasted our backs with the full force of early afternoon, as we followed the steep track towards the Forca de lis Sieris. Probably we could have greatly improved matters if we had stuck to the broad mule path, which approaches the pass from the west in long, comfortable zigzags. Oitzinger, however, knew of a splendid spring straight below the Forca, and was not to be diverted from a direct ascent. The old phrase ……………… being also my principle, so long as Asti or Chianti are not within range, I followed panting in his steps. Our subsequent orgy of drinking at the fountain met speedy retribution in an unbelievable access of perspiration, and I must confess that when at last the longed-for Forca came in sight above the final slopes I hailed the vision with joy. I had had my bellyful of uphill for the day. As for Oitzinger, who despite his wretched footgear had never once slipped, and whose monstrosity of an alpenstock had never got in his way on the rocks, when I saw him arrive at the pass as fresh as a daisy my admiration knew no bounds. Now things became more serious, and rope and Kletterschuhe came into action again. It is true that Oitzinger had often climbed the north side of the Forca, but always in ascent, and even that was many years ago. We knew that it was easy to make a false move on the descent, and we had to be on our guard. Under no circumstances was a night out to be considered, as we were expected back in Wolfsbach that evening.
I must here mention that, though normally I talked with Oitzinger in German, we often used Slovene. It depended on circumstances which tongue gave better and more pregnant expression to the needs of the moment. At first the descent went smoothly enough, the difficulties not being serious, in fact hardly greater than on the Pichl route on the Planspitze. But suddenly, without being conscious of error, we were enticed out of our way by easy broken rocks, and found ourselves on a sharp nose of rock, in a more breezy position than seemed justified by the regulation route. For a rope's length and a half we crept downwards diagonally to the left by most unsatisfactory holds, and then our wisdom appeared to end in the void which opened at our feet. We did the correct thing in such unforeseen circumstances: Oitzinger scratched himself behind the right ear, I lit a cigarette, and we both put a brave face on it. However ' this did not seem to exhaust all possibilities, so after a short council of war, in which Oitzinger, having an equal vote, summarily rejected all my suggestions of trying a direct descent somewhere, we returned to our airy nose of rock. Here I fancied that I could see a possible traverse horizontally to the left, by which we were bound to strike the correct route, and this time Oitzinger did not disapprove. But now, owing to our error, it was getting very late. In the hope that Oitzinger had by now realized that I was not a complete novice-hitherto the rope had been little more than ballast, and except for the one difficult rope-length during the ascent we had always moved together-I proposed to him that in order to save time we should take off the rope; the traverse might be exposed, but it was clearly not difficult, and the proper route must lie just beyond the next rib, where we could then go unroped.... But I got it in the neck from old Oitzinger! I had not finished speaking before he thundered, "Tiho molcite pa naprej pejte!" with the whole reawakened authority of his guide's responsibility. This means, in polite language, "Quiet, please, and keep moving"; but with my knowledge of the spirit of the Slovene tongue, especially where it endeavours to express itself with emphasis, I understood the full significance of these words: "Shut your mouth, and get on with it!" if I have succeeded in drawing a true picture of Oitzinger and his attitude towards his employer, the sympathetic reader will understand that the mere thought of taking offence would have been ridiculous. Perhaps even Uncle Julius, the king of the Julians, would likewise have been blown sky-high if he had at some critical moment evolved a plan which Oitzinger was not prepared to cover with his ministerial responsibility. I was kept accordingly on the rope. The traverse went well; we regained the path of virtue, and after an exciting scramble were soon at the foot of the actual precipice.
At this point, between the main wall and a huge, projecting curtain of rock which runs up to the Campanile degli Altari, there is enclosed a steep, snow-filled gully, interrupted by drops, leading down towards the upper Spranje. Splendid! Steep, hard snow, grand holding for my ice axe and boot nails; but I must remember to kick good steps for old Oitzinger with his slippery shoes, otherwise he might at last slip and go purling down the drops in the gully. So it was with a consciousness of service that I began to kick step after step in the hard white bed, with my axe driven in. But why was he not following- I looked round for him with some anxiety, just in time to see my protege reluctantly getting ready at the snow's edge for the start, thrusting his museum-cudgel into the snow, and then-slipping! Yes, but a voluntary glissade. With reassuring safety and inimitable grace, he went sailing past me, leaving me and my ice axe, and the soup plates designed for his use, far behind him, pulled up a hair's breadth short of the first drop with an enviable confidence, and then looked cheerfully round at me. Meanwhile his amazed Herr had time enough during a cautious descent to reflect how modern sporting feasts and true mastery of ground are two totally different things, and to realize that wretched townsmen had better abandon mountaineering, which is always beyond their grasp, poor devils, if they could not get such fun out of it! Any last vestige of conceit or self-esteem was now blown to the winds. I rejoined my guide like a dog with its tail between its legs, and followed him quietly for the rest of the descent. This was full of pleasant variation, until we set foot in the virgin forest of alpenrose in the upper Spranje, shortly before reaching the Bärenlahnscharte track in the neighbourhood of Dougan's bivouac site by the highest larches in the corrie. Beneath the red glow of evening we drank in the marvels which this most glorious of all basins reveals to the enchanted wanderer. Darkness was coming on. In the Gentian corrie we completed the circle of the journey on which we had set out that morning.
As we walked in silence through the woods of the Seissera I had leisure to ponder on the old man walking beside me, fresh as ever and without a trace of fatigue. He was nearly sixty-seven years old. He had worked hard all the week; to-day, our climb; and to-morrow, the first rays of sunshine would see him once more on his meadow, scythe in hand. And here was a young buck like myself, with weeks of rest and training behind him, longing for a bed in which to laze till noon to-morrow. And perhaps one fine day I should begin to chatter or even to write about my Alpine heroics I He writes nothing, and barely speaks; or if he does speak, it is to tell amusing stories. He leaves others to record his deeds, whether in war or on the mountains. In silence he laments the course of the world. Only the mountains, only his home brings him comfort. And was even home now left to him- With his Carinthian heritage, which he could never cast off or forget, he was soon to find a common grave.
At the opening of the Zapraha ravine we parted from each other, he to his pasture, I to Wolfsbach. I shook his kind hand once more, and looked again into his clear, faithful eyes. It was to be the last time. I never saw him again.
Every evening in Wolfsbach, Uncle Julius gets the latest news from returning climbers. Everybody must report to him, whether acquaintance or stranger, famous or not, whether the day has gone well or the reverse. There stands Uncle Julius like a Colossus, bestriding the narrow fairway of the village street; nobody escapes him, he must hear just what is afoot in the mountains, in his mountains. To-day, however, he has not waited in the narrow street; no, he has gone to the exit from the village to meet us on our return. I can see him from far off, in the midst of a group of young people, talking eagerly to him of their day's work among chimneys and precipices. Then he catches sight of me. Leaving the others, he comes towards me with a look of expectant questioning: I must tell him all about Oitzinger, his beloved Oitzinger, he can never hear enough about him. A tender pride in the companion of his best years reflects itself in his features, and his memory swings far back to the days when the first threads of this unique friendship were woven between master and guide. At length Uncle julius nods in contentment, and delves thoughtfully at his pipe. He knows that wherever Julius Kugy is remembered, the name of Anton Oitzinger will also live.

CHAPTER TWELVE

LAST DAYS

IN May I928 I saw Oitzinger for the last time. As we said good-bye, he told me that he had had some slight internal trouble. I begged him not to make light of anything; at our age, I said, we could not afford the risk, and if it recurred he must immediately consult a doctor. He gave me his promise, adding, however, that all was well again, and that I need not worry. Soon after, I received news of him from elsewhere in Valbruna, which alarmed me somewhat and led me to write at once for further explanation. Before this could reach me, Oitzinger had fulfilled his destiny. When the doctor was summoned from Tarvis, it was already too late. A severe attack of appendicitis, with accompanying peritonitis, had struck him down suddenly, in his sixty-eighth year. "Call Dr. Kugy," he cried repeatedly to his family, when he realized the gravity of his condition, "he will save my life." But I arrived to find him dead.
They carried him to his grave. I watched the procession go by, wishing to let the family and the village precede me, and to follow alone, at some distance, not ranked with the mourners. But there walked beside me one sorrowing creature, with bowed head, as if broken by grief: it was Oitzinger's dog, the faithful Wolfi. His dumb misery was touching to behold.
Oitzinger now sleeps in the humble flower-strewn cemetery of Valbruna, in the north-west corner, beneath a simple memorial tablet.

HIER RUHET
IM FRIEDEN GOTTES
NACH EINEM LEBEN
DER ARBEIT UND DER TREUE
ANTON OITZINGER
BESITZER UND BERGFUEIRER
GEBOREN 20 NOVEMBER 1860
GESTORBEN 13 JUNI 1928

May the kind earth rest lightly upon him!
In the words of Charles Dickens, when he bids farewell to his Pickwick:

"There are dark shadows in the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast. Some men, like bats or owls, have better eyes for the darkness than for the light. We are better pleased to take our last parting look at the visionary companions of many solitary hours when the brief sunshine of the world is blazing full upon them."

Let us do likewise, and not linger by Oitzinger's grave, dwelling upon sad thoughts. This would not accord with his spirit. Let us rather picture him striding confidently uphill at our side, or telling his vivid tales beside the flickering bivouac fire, and see him once more on some narrow terrace, searching for the correct passage through the crags, or quietly returning from some bold venture with contentment upon his face. With this vision let us greet his beloved memory in the fresh mountain air of the Seissera, where his heart found happiness.

Grüss Gott, Oitzinger!

THE END