THE ICE-AXE, THE PRECIPICE, AND THE BULL.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2660, 19 May 1908, Page 7

THE ICE-AXE, THE PRECIPICE, AND THE BULL.

EVEN FISHERMEN DOUBT THE STORY. J once heard a remarkable story concerning the Dolomites told, as a personal adventure, by a celebrated climbing Oleric, who has tackled several of the hills single-handed.

This epistle of truth and solitary scrambling had climbed, with extreme difficulty, up to the edge of a narrow ledge which ran for a considerable distance around the face of a fearfully exposed precipice. The rocks overhung above and below, but he felt certain there was a way off the ledge at its farther end. Strange to say, he saw a bull coming along the ledge towards hiin. Retreat or escape in any direction seemed impossible. However, necessity truly is the mother of invention, and he fixed the adze end of his ice-axe on the edge of the ledge, and suspended himself by the shaft over the precipice until the bovine mountaineer had passed along. Such a position may seen dangerous enough, but, as a matter *»f fact, the cleric said that he only felt frightened when the animal stopped a moment and snified at tlje head of the ice-axe.

When the danger was past, of course, lie swarmed up the shaft of the ice-axe and went on his way rejoicing.

Mulls are uncommon on Dolomite ledges, and despite the status of the raconteur, I have even known fishermen doubt the truth of this story. —From G. P. Abraham's "Complete Mountaineer."