VANITY AND VEXATION OF SPIEIT. 149 



On turning our attention towards the cause of their dis- 

 quietude, we descry a small white speck moving up the hill- 

 side, far away below. To our intense disgust, the spy-glass 

 shows it to be the big white turban of the impostor, who had 

 been left behind to clean and stretch the skin l of the bear I 

 had shot the day before. The useless idiot was now follow- 

 ing us straight up the hill, without the slightest attempt at 

 concealment. If he could only have heard the Cashmerian 

 " Billingsgate " applied to himself and his kindred by my two 

 companions, they would not have felt flattered, and I did not 

 bless him myself. 



We now climb up to the place where the ibex disappeared, 

 and are astonished to find one of them lying wounded among 

 the rocks just beyond it, but on seeing us it instantly jumps 

 up and makes off. I let drive a flurried shot after it, and miss. 

 Whilst following this animal we find blood on the tracks of a 

 second, and as they are larger than those of the first, we 

 follow them up until the declining sun warns us not to risk 

 being again overtaken by darkness so high up on the hill. 

 We therefore descend to a small cave where Eamzan had 

 proposed we should pass the night. 



The greater part of next day was occupied in tracking the 

 wounded animals, but they had betaken themselves to such 

 bad ground that at length it became impossible to follow 

 them any farther. 



For nearly a month had I been perspiring over these heart- 

 breaking hills, and I was now beginning to think that such 

 profitless toil was only vanity and vexation of spirit, and that 

 these infernal ibex were merely a delusive wile of some mock- 

 ing demon of the mountains who was amusing himself at my 



i The simplest way to temporarily cure a bear's skin is to peg it out on the 

 ground and cover it with white wood-ashes from your camp-fire. These 

 should repeatedly be rubbed into the skin with a rough stone. The paws, 

 lips, and roots of the ears should have a little salt rubbed into them, and the 

 cartilage of the ears should be skinned as far up as possible, otherwise the 

 hair is apt to fall off. 



