78 EXORCISING AN EVIL SPIRIT. 



numbered about five-and-twenty animals. All of them, how- 

 ever, were tehrny or very young males. Being alarmed, they 

 had huddled up together and stood in a cluster some 200 

 yards below. Half blind as I was, I thought I could hardly 

 miss such a big mark. On the bullet striking, with a smack, 

 on a stone in their midst, it was a pretty and curious sight 

 to see the manner in which the herd instantly split into two 

 bands, which galloped off. each in an opposite direction. I 

 should never have fired such an indiscriminate shot, and at 

 such inferior specimens, had I not become desperate at having 

 as yet got no venison for our camp, after losing so many easy 

 chances of procuring it. Of course the natives ascribed my 

 want of success to the protection from harm afforded to the 

 game there by the deity of the mountain. I discovered one 

 fellow who had accompanied me from Shore, smoking my 

 rifle with some burning stuff that he informed me was a 

 charm with which he was endeavouring to exorcise the evil 

 spirit he thought must have possessed it for, he added, he 

 never had known it behave so badly when he had been out 

 with me on former shikar trips. The following morning, 

 however, my eye being considerably better, such ideas were 

 dispelled from their minds by my shooting a fine buck tahr, 

 and also a gooral. The tahr was one of a herd of seven ; but 

 owing to the broken nature of the ground, it was not until 

 after we had stalked quite close up to and shot him, that we 

 caught sight of his companions as they scurried helter-skelter 

 away among the rocks. My satisfaction at being, at last, 

 able to kill some game on this ground, was added to by the 

 opportunity it afforded of providing my friends of the plateau 

 with some venison in return for their civility. 



The game here had been so much disturbed by my wild 

 firing, that I now thought it advisable to try fresh ground. 

 About noon the loads were all packed and hauled up from 

 the rocky alcove. The laden men descended along the ridge 

 until they reached the lower extremity, as it were, of the 



