72 THE TAHR. 



over the precipitous rocky slopes just below the snow-line, 

 and is occasionally found on some of the higher parts of the 

 middle ranges, where, however, it appears not to attain the 

 same size as it does in the higher regions below the snowy 

 range. I have never seen a more truly wild-looking animal 

 in the Himalayas than an old buck tahr, with his long frill- 

 like mane and shaggy coat of dark greyish-brown, short 

 sturdy legs, and almost black face. His horns are from 

 twelve to fourteen inches long, and about nine inches in 

 circumference at the base, broad and flat, with their rough 

 anterior edges rising in a line with the forehead till they 

 abruptly curve backward to a very fine point. When seen 

 from the front, they somewhat resemble a high coronet. An 

 old buck stands over three feet at the shoulder. The doe, 

 called " tehrny," is smaller, lighter in colour, and less shaggy, 

 with horns of the same shape, but much smaller than those 

 of the buck. The great old bucks herd separately during the 

 summer until October, generally betaking themselves to the 

 wildest and most unapproachable places. Their colour is 

 often so dark as, at a distance, almost to look black, more 

 especially in the autumn. The flesh of the tahr, or " jharrel," 

 as it is sometimes called, is considered by the hill-men to be 

 great medicine for fever and rheumatism; and shikarees 

 often dry the flesh and sell it, and even the bones, in places 

 where fresh tahr meat is not procurable. 



As it would be difficult to procure even the bare necessaries 

 of life in the wild, thinly populated part of the mountains I 

 was about to visit, my commissariat arrangements, &c., were 

 this time made on a rather more extensive scale, and our 

 party consisted of some nine or ten men all told, including 

 Kurbeer. In two days we reached the village of Askote, the 

 residence of a native potentate styling himself a " Eajwar " ; 

 and the third morning brought us to the Goree, a fine rapid 

 river, which was then in a muddy state of flood from the 

 melting of the snow-fields about its source. The only note- 



