74 PRIMITIVE TOBACCO-PIPES. 



escaped with nothing worse than my knuckles well barked 

 and my clothes a bit torn by the sharp stones on the slope. 

 But we must now try to recover our musk-deer. 



The shikaree at once set off down the hill to look for it. 

 And judging from the time we had taken in coming up, I 

 concluded he would be a good while getting down and re- 

 turning with it on his back ; so I sat down and lit my pipe, 

 Kurbeer doing likewise with one he had made by twisting 

 a green leaf into a conical shape, which he filled with my 

 cavendish, and smoked through his clasped hands by way 

 of mouth-piece. The hill-men are decidedly ingenious in 

 some of their extempore contrivances for smoking tobacco. 

 The most primitive I have seen was a small hole made 

 horizontally under the surface of the ground and left open 

 at the extremities. At one end was placed the tobacco, 

 whilst at the other each man in turn knelt down and in- 

 haled two or three long-drawn whiffs of smoke into his 

 lungs. 



Waiting so long on the ridge was by no means irksome 

 to me, for I was glad of the rest it afforded. Moreover, 

 when situated on such an elevated spot, commanding so ex- 

 tensive an area of grand mountain scenery, one need never 

 tire of watching the ever- vary ing effects of light and shade 

 as some passing cloud floats lazily across the deep-blue 

 firmament, temporarily darkening and seemingly altering 

 the rugged features of the mountains beneath it. Some- 

 times a great bearded vulture (the Lammergeier of Europe) 

 would come slowly soaring round the wall-like face of a 

 cliff, rising high away to our left, and, with outstretched 

 wings, sweep past so close to us that we could hear the 

 rustle of his pinions. We almost fancied we could see his 

 inquisitive eye regarding our prostrate forms with a hungry, 

 sinister expression, as we lay motionless on the ridge. There 

 was interesting enjoyment, too, in observing, through the 

 spy-glass, the movements of a distant herd of tahr; and 

 charms for the ear in the faint murmur of rushing water 



