BUKRELL GROUND. 305 



People in India have not yet 'taken to attempting ascents 

 of the highest mountains. Of late years the few members 

 of the Alpine Club who have come to the Himalayas for 

 that purpose, have found the native shikarees and guides, 

 who are unequalled as cragsmen, to be quite useless as ice- 

 men. The fact is, they seldom have any occasion to cross 

 glaciers. Very few of the passes usually traversed lead over 

 them, and in the pursuit of game glaciers are avoided, as no 

 game is found near their higher regions. Another reason 

 why these " paharees " are so helpless on ice is, that they 

 are so badly shod. Boots are unknown among them, and 

 many of them only wear shoes on festive occasions. More- 

 over, every high snow-peak is regarded by these mountain- 

 eers, who are mostly Hindoos, with superstitious awe, as the 

 abode of one or other of their deities, whom they fear to 

 offend. Himalayan guides will doubtless improve at ice 

 work ere long, if their services are in demand for that 

 purpose. The Cashmere mountaineers, who are chiefly 

 Mahomedans, and who have their lower extremities pro- 

 tected by sandals and bandages, are much more at home on 

 steep snow-slopes and ice. 



After going up one of the Doonagiri glaciers for there 

 are two which unite a considerable distance, I got such a 

 racking headache, probably from the combined effects of the 

 intense heat of the sun on the glacier and the cutting wind 

 that came sweeping over it, that I was forced to return. 

 The evening was spent watching, with the spy-glass, the 

 movements of two or three small lots of burrell that were 

 feeding on a rugged, partially grass- clad slope away across a 

 deep and wide treeless hollow, down which ran the broken 

 torrent that drained the glacier. As there were several 

 good-looking heads in one of the flocks, I resolved to be 

 after them on the morrow. 



Not caring to ford the deep rapid snow-stream the first 

 thing in the morning, we took a longer way to cross it dry- 

 footed, up over the bottom of the glacier ; consequently we 



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