IN THE SALT DISTRICT. 187 



Everything is salt ; even the air has the peculiar salt 

 smell of the seaside. The path along the bottom of the 

 ravine fords the stream some twenty or thirty times. My 

 horse sniffed the water, but would not drink ; it was salt as 

 brine. Almost at the end of the pass a small spring of 

 fresh water wells out of the rock, and near here we pitched 

 our tents. Whilst we were waiting, a herd of oorial 

 appeared for a moment on the hill above. They quickly 

 vanished, and were probably coming with the intention ol 

 drinking at the spring. 



Just as the sun was setting we heard a shot fired on 

 the hills and then, shortly after dark, Alan arrived, very 

 pleased at having killed a fine ram. They brought the 

 head, with horns twenty-eight inches long, but it was so 

 dark and the descent so bad that they had to leave the 

 body behind. This was unfortunate, for with the exception 

 of the usual stringy fowl we had no fresh meat to-night, 



Alan and Mahomet had had a very long day, and 

 although they saw two or three lots of oorial, not a single 

 ram for a long time worth shooting. They were actually 

 beginning to descend the hills towards where they knew 

 our camp ought to be when Mahomet spied out a herd of 

 oorial some distance below. They were feeding under a 

 small cliff, and had luckily not seen them. With the 

 glasses Alan made out three rams, one, the patriarch of 

 the herd, an enormous fellow, almost white with age. 



