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CHAPTER XIII. 



TOWARDS the middle of a very hot summer in the Punjab, I 

 started for the Himalayas on two months' leave. From con- 

 stant confinement indoors where the sojourner in the plains 

 of India during the hot season is constrained to shut himself 

 up all day in a darkened room to avoid the intense heat and 

 glare I had been getting into that unhappy frame of mind 

 which makes life almost a burden, and from want of suffi- 

 cient light and fresh air, my face was rapidly assuming the 

 blanched appearance presented by the inside of a tied-up 

 cabbage. After this dreary monotonous sort of existence, 

 it can easily be imagined with what keen delight I looked 

 forward to being once more free to roam among the pine- 

 forests and snowy regions of the Cashmere mountains. 



My intention this time was to hunt markhor on the 

 western end of the Pir Punchal range, above the sources of 

 the Bonyar river. I chose this locality because I knew it 

 had not been much hunted over for several seasons, although 

 it had not as great a reputation for big markhor as other 

 places I had visited. 



If one wishes to have good sport in a foreign land, the 

 first and most important thing to be done is to endeavour 

 as much as possible to ingratiate one's self with the people 

 of the country in the vicinity of one's hunting-ground. 

 Acting upon this principle, which I have always put into 

 practice, I proceeded to pay my respects to a nawab (native 

 gentleman) who was the proprietor of part of the land I 



