64 PEEPS A FLIES. 



coolies and all, under a huge beetling rock, from which 

 retreat we had to eject, with the help of smoke, myriads of 

 small black, biting flies, here called " peepsas " or " moras," 

 very like the " black fly " of the Canadian woods, and just 

 as troublesome. Their bite leaves, under the skin, a small 

 blood-spot, which is very irritable. 



Our way now led up beside a torrent that leapt from rock 

 to rock as it tore furiously down a very steep gorge. After 

 several hours spent in fording and refording this ice-cold 

 stream where its sides were precipitous and impassable, and 

 in assisting each other in clambering up difficult places, we 

 exchanged this rocky defile for a stiff but less laborious 

 pull up a steep wooded slope of the Chipla. 



At length we reached an open space on the mountain- 

 side, where the sloping ground was cultivated in small 

 stony fields arranged in terraces. In these the inhabitants 

 of the few log-built huts that were scattered here and there 

 over this plateau, raised their scanty crops, just sufficient 

 for their own wants. 



As we were pitching our little camp on the plateau, we 

 were interviewed by several of the tenants of the log-huts, 

 who willingly offered to give us every assistance in the way 

 of sport. Tahr they reported as abundant higher up on 

 the mountain, and a few black bears and plenty of kakur 

 (barking-deer) in the forest close above the plateau. 



Next morning, whilst forcing my way through some 

 tangled bushes, a twig I had pressed back with my hand 

 flew back and struck me in the open eye, causing the most 

 acute pain, and quite blinding me for the time of that eye. 

 Being the right eye, this little accident proved highly detri- 

 mental to rifle-shooting for several days. 



About noon we commenced our ascent to the haunts of 

 the tahr. For a mile or two our way led through forest, 

 and over ground that was rough and uneven owing to huge 

 fragments of rock that had been detached by some bygone 

 convulsion of nature from the heights above, and which 



