DANGEROUS EXPERIMENTS. 85 



and there by which we could hold on. On nearing the top, it 

 was decidedly unpleasant to look back, and I was very glad 

 when we reached it. I was then but a neophyte in moun- 

 taineering on the upper Himalayan ranges, or I should prob- 

 ably have thought little of such a climb. 



" Kustoora ! " suddenly ejaculated Kurbeer, just as we topped 

 the ascent. A musk-deer had jumped up close to us, and was 

 standing at gaze on the ridge. All breathless as I was, I fired, 

 and felt sure the animal was hit, although it made off. We 

 soon discovered it standing on a little ledge of rock below the 

 brow of the ridge. I could easily have finished it with another 

 shot, but if it fell from the ledge there was nothing to prevent 

 its going to the bottom of the rocky steep below it, by a much 

 quicker route than the one we had taken in coming up. As 

 it looked very sick, Kurbeer volunteered to clamber down and 

 try to secure it. The danger of such a proceeding did not strike 

 me until I nearly had cause to repent having allowed him to 

 attempt it. Climbing cautiously below the ledge, he seized 

 the little creature by one of its hind legs. In its struggles 

 to free itself it toppled off the ledge, the lad still holding on 

 to it with one hand, whilst with the other he gripped the 

 ledge above him. At last, in order to save himself from 

 falling, Kurbeer was obliged to let go, when the animal went 

 whirling down among the crags. Had he lost his balance or 

 his footing in the struggle ... I don't like recalling the 

 feelings of those few anxious moments to my memory. 



Bather would I describe my sensations during a somewhat 

 similar episode, when, from being the principal actor myself, 

 they were less poignant than when beholding another in 

 imminent jeopardy without the possibility of helping him, 

 and for which I felt myself to blame. I had wounded a 

 gooral, and it had betaken itself to a steep bare slope, off 

 which the dry grass had been recently burnt, where it lay 

 down in a dying state on a shelving slab of rock. Not wish- 

 ing to disturb the ground by unnecessarily firing another shot, 



