Ibex 5 5 



original skull rock, where we decided to wait 

 on the chance of seeing ibex on the move when 

 the evening got cool. 



One other living thing we had seen in the 

 course of the day a man, mahogany tinted, with 

 a pointed Afghan skull-cap on his head and wild- 

 looking as childhood's pictures of Robinson Crusoe. 

 He was an angoza hunter, one of the tribe of 

 Kakars that invade Persia in the spring and 

 spread over the hills in quest of asafcetida. 

 His work was visible on the flat top of our table, 

 in the shape of little pyramidal erections of three 

 stones each. The method of these people, when 

 they find a plant (Ferula foetida), is to cut off 

 the stem an inch below the surface of the 

 ground ; over it they then build a little three- 

 stone structure to mark the spot and also to 

 protect the plant from sun and wind. Four 

 days later they again make the round to collect 

 the gum that exudes. From this hill country of 

 Eastern Persia come many other gums, most of 

 them more entitled to the adjective "aromatic" 

 than asafcetida, mannas, tragacanth, &c., besides 

 jujube and other materia medica, whose presence 

 sometimes lends a mysterious Eastern fragrance 

 to the pot-pourri of East India docks. 



The difficulties of the hill, of which I had 

 certainly been forewarned, were now only too 



