They indeed call the wind that brings this
sharp-pointed snow, The Tormenta.
An adventure, which any-where else might have appeared ridiculous, I was
afraid would have proved fatal to one of our chairmen, as I will call
them. I had flapt down my hat to screen my eyes from the fury of that
deluge of sharp-pointed frozen-snow; and it was blown off my head, by a
sudden gust, down the precipices: I gave it for lost, and was about to
bind a handkerchief over the woolen-cap, which those people provide to
tie under the chin; when one of the assistant carriers (for they are
always six in number to every chair, in order to relieve one another)
undertook to recover it. I thought it impossible to be done; the passage
being, as I imagined, only practicable for birds: however, I promised him
a crown reward, if he did. Never could the leaps of the most dexterous
of rope-dancers be compared to those of this daring fellow: I saw him
sometimes jumping from rock to rock, sometimes rolling down a declivity
of snow like a ninepin, sometimes running, sometimes hopping, skipping;
in short, he descended like lightning to the verge of a torrent, where he
found the hat. He came up almost as quick, and appeared as little
fatigued, as if he had never left us.
We arrived at the top in two hours, from Lanebourg; and the sun was
pretty high above the horizon.
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