THE GAME OF ASTOR 21 



were mounted on the fort walls. There were about two 

 hundred men in the Bi'inji fort, under a commandant, 

 subordinate to the general commanding the Gilgit district. 

 Near each fort were collections of huts wliich formed the 

 cantonments. All the officers and men lived in them ; 

 only a small number at a time garrisoned the forts. 

 The civil administration was then distinguished for its 

 simplicity ; the governor was called the Wazir ; in him 

 was centred all civil authority, and under him was the 

 Thanadar, the chief officer of police. These two officials 

 managed the affairs of their charge through the medium of 

 jagirdars and lambardars, the great and small landholders 

 of the country. The military and civil administration was 

 entirely alien, though Kozi Khan, the Wazi'r at that time 

 (a very capable man), had strong sympathies with the 

 population, as his family had been settled in Giires and 

 Astor for the last two generations. 



Let us now turn to the game of Astor and the places 

 where they are found. The list is not a long one, but it 

 comprises the two animals for which this corner of the 

 Kashmir territories has always been famous — the murkhor 

 {Capra megaceros) and the ibex {Ccipra sihirica). Besides 

 these there are the iirin {Ovis vignci) or wild sheep, the 

 brown or snow bear (Ursus isahellina), and the musk 

 deer {Moschus mosehiferus); — a short list, no doubt, but 

 every individual worthy the rifle of the best sportsman 

 in existence. 



The murkhor is called Biim in the Dard language : luin 

 mazdro is the male ; hum ai (pronounced " eye ") is the 

 female. Sterndale (page 441) after Kinloch divides them 

 into four varieties : we are concerned at present with the 

 fourth, or Baltistan and Astor markhor, distinguished 

 from the rest by " large flat horns branching out very 

 widely and then going up nearly straight, with only a half 



