1 86 By Mountain, Lake, and Plain 



look over a big panorama of country. Lunch, 

 with draughts of pure mountain crystal from a 

 spring close at hand, came next, after which the 

 hunters composed themselves to sleep. For my 

 part, I lay back in the long grass and felt possessed 

 by an extraordinary feeling of delight in my sur- 

 roundings. Persia, its stony mountains, its heat, 

 its dust, its flies, its festering and dilapidated 

 cities, its sordid politics, were all left far behind, 

 and I was back in the Himalaya, and yet it 

 was not exactly Kashmir, nor yet was it Scotland, 

 but something that reminded one of both, 

 eminently delightful. 



As the afternoon wore on, I wandered about to 

 different commanding points and used my glasses, 

 but so far from seeing anything to please me, saw 

 something that mightily annoyed me. This was a 

 man with a dog that appeared over a distant hill. 

 As he came along he fired the dry grass, and in 

 half an hour the glen was full of drifting blue 

 smoke. I thought at first that his action was 

 deliberately designed to spoil my sport, and felt 

 very like sending a shot across his bows in con- 

 sequence ; but the shikaris told me that he was 

 a hunter from their own village who was 

 returning from a shooting trip, and, ignorant of 

 our presence, he was firing the grass to mark 

 its conclusion. Anyhow he spoiled our chance 



