52 MARKHOR SHOOTING 



supplies came from the village, so it was well to reduce 

 the number of men with me. My own food was cooked 

 at the village and sent up daily. The shikaris went on 

 after we camped in order to view the ground higher up, 

 and I remained behind. Towards evening, while lying on 

 the ground, my eyes wandering over the steep hillside 

 before me, I saw a female markhor on a rock a few 

 hundred yards above, sharply defined against the sky. I 

 went down with Ghariba to a ravine on the left of the 

 main stream, to watch in case there might be a buck close 

 by, but we saw only three females coming down the ridge^ 

 under which a flock of goats were grazing. The markhor 

 evidently wanted to come down for a drink, but were 

 afraid to venture so low. After watching them for a while, 

 we came back to camp and found there Sharafa, who said 

 he had seen only two males, a great distance off, high up 

 on the ridge above camp. 



We started early, and went straight up a nala, turning 

 up the hillside over our camping place, a steady ascent 

 for more than two hours. Many old signs of very large 

 markhor were visible, but no trace of the two bucks seen 

 on the previous evening, so we crossed the ridge and 

 descended to the next nala. Having had breakfast at a 

 spring, we scrambled down the face of a precipice, holding 

 on to ledges, and went up the valley, which is a very 

 narrow one ; but the wind began to blow very strongly 

 upwards, that is, from us, and as there was also slight rain, 

 we lay up for a time until the wind abated. Sharafa found 

 the head, horns, and backbone of a markhor that had been 

 killed about twelve days previously, evidently an old buck, 

 judging from the long beard ; but the horns were only 

 thirty-four and a half inches long, and were quite joined 

 together at the base. This, and their shortness, Mirza 

 Khan said, was due to the owner being one of a pair of 



