232 By Mountain , Lake, and Plain 



though the shikari ran the whole gamut of 

 seductive and defiant noises and the stag kept 

 answering, he would come no closer. Then I 

 crept down into the forest to try and locate him. 

 He gave one splendid roar when I was about 

 200 yards from him. Another stag then roared 

 from far down the valley on the other side, and 

 the next roar from our stag was miles away. 

 We went down after him but never saw him. 



The maral is a big long-faced deer with very 

 marked woodland habits as will have been gath- 

 ered. Except in the spring and autumn, they 

 seem very rarely to emerge from their sylvan 

 retreats. In the spring, when they come out on 

 open spaces for the young grass and flowers, 

 they are in wretched condition, and the wild 

 sheep being plentiful, hunting - parties generally 

 leave them alone, so in this part at any rate it 

 is only in the autumn that they are systematically 

 harried. 



The senses of the maral are as acute as those 

 of other races of deer. Mahommed certainly 

 made out that so long as you guarded your scent 

 carefully, it did not so much matter about con- 

 cealment ; but I rather think that this theory 

 suggested itself to him for the first time when 

 it was a question of approaching a stag either 

 over rather open ground or through some very 



