64 RIFLE AND SPEAR WITH THE RAJPOOTS. 



November 2nd. — It rained and snowed all yesterday, 

 so we did not march. Alan was out all day, but as usual 

 saw nothing : not even a trace of anv bio- game. This 

 morning it was a little finer, although the hills around are 

 white with snow. We start at 10 a.m. and reach the foot 

 of the pass about 2 p.m., having had occasional snow and 

 hail showers all the way. It is fearfully cold. Our tents 

 are pitched near the bank of the torrent which flows from 

 the snow and ice on the mountain in front of us. The 

 forest of pines which clothes all the lower slopes only 

 extends for a few hundred yards higher, and evidently 

 marks the limit at which trees exist. Alan went out 

 towards evening, and says : " We kept along the tops 

 of the lower spurs of the mountain, which are covered 

 with dense pine woods. A thin layer of snow has been 

 lying on the ground all day, and if a barasingh had been 

 about anywhere we must have come across his track ; 

 but there was not a single fresh mark. In one place 

 in the dry mud were the footprints of a stag, but not 

 recent, or less than a week or two old. Rahman thinks 

 the barasingh have been driven lower down by the snow, 

 but my impression is they arc so very few in number 

 that at an)' time it is only by a lucky chance they are 

 ever seen in these endless forests. 



"When we had climbed above the tree line, we came 

 to a orass-covered merg, on which the recent marks where 



