82 DAYS AND NIGHTS OF SHIKAR 



Rivers held us up which in ordinary years could be 

 forded, but were now in too flooded a condition to 

 cross ; our coolies, in fact, refused to do so, as several 

 hill people had lately been drowned in attempting 

 it. It was one of those exceptional seasons that so 

 constantly occur, and nasty exceptional, not nice 

 exceptional, at that. 



We climbed after ibex and after bear, but they 

 always seemed to elude us. Then when we got far 

 away from Kashmir after many marches, the head 

 shikari hurt his leg badly and was unable to walk, 

 and the second man was taken ill, suffering from his 

 heart, which Ned said was all owing to undue strain 

 in carrying me several times on his back over streams 

 and bad places ; and it was nearly impossible to get 

 any sport without their help. 



We crossed the Woolar Lake by boat and meant 

 to tie up to the bank for the night, but the water 

 was too shallow and there were too many weeds to 

 get close in, so the boatmen drove down stakes at 

 some distance from the shore, to which we tied up. 

 In the middle of dinner a violent wind storm came 

 on, and we had to leave our oldish chicken very 

 suddenly to fly and hold on to everything we could. 

 The chiks were blown inside out; I saw the whole 

 of my bedding swept overboard. My boy gave a 

 groan of dismay as we both rushed towards it and 

 caught hold of the pillow and the last corner of sheet 

 and dragged them back; but rugs, dressing-gown 

 and other things floated away on the waves. Ned 

 had meanwhile to tie down and secure the table- 

 cloth, and try and save the table too, with the cold 



