236 STAG AND BEAR SHOOTING IN KASHMIR 



occupants of the servants' tent were found dead in the 

 position in which they were sleeping. Two coolies who 

 had been sent for supplies to Sorii tried to return with 

 them, but the storm drove them down again. They 

 crossed five days after, and, finding no truce of the camp, 

 inferred that the sahib had gone to Siiknis, but, finding 

 he was not there, came back with twenty men and 

 discovered the camp buried under the snow. Many years 

 before this another Englishman and his party were buried 

 under an avalanche in the Miingil nala, Wardwan valley, as 

 they were returning in the evening from hunting ibex. 

 Considering the number of men who, year after year, 

 travel about in the Himalayas, it is wonderful that so few 

 fatal accidents have been recorded. 



I was now on the watershed of the Chimib, and every- 

 thing was changed. The hillsides were carpeted with 

 grass, and the first clump of birch-trees graced the farther 

 bank just in front of my tent-door. The next camp was 

 Pajahoi, opposite the opening of the Wishni-waj valley. 

 I made my first attempt after bears here, but was 

 unsuccessful. Shepherds and sheep were about, and I 

 heard of a sahib and mem-sahib in a ualii lower down ; 

 so not only liad the stag season opened, but the sportsman 

 (and his wife) were up and after them. At this camp the 

 tent was soaking wet with dew in the morning : I never 

 saw dew in Ladakh. I reached Siiknis on the 22nd of 

 September, and from this point began my hunt after stag 

 and bear. 



Oh for the good times of twenty years ago, when stags 

 and bears in the Kashmir valleys were less rare than they 

 are now, and the sportsman had not to work so hard for a 

 couple of good heads and half a dozen brown bear skins 1 

 He then simply " raced " for his valley, and, if his head 

 shikari was a good intriguer, got in first. He pitched his 



