loo SPORT IN THE HIGHLANDS OF KASHMIR chap. 



meal the day before the water for my tea was made from 

 snow, and that I had been glad to seek shelter from the 

 cold of the wind. 



Here the Cabul tent and spare things were left, and 

 in light marching order as when we went up Burme, 

 we started for the village of Shut ' further down the 

 Indus. The track was very wearisome, being all over 

 rocks and sand, and involving numerous ascents and 

 descents, to cross the channels worn by small tributaries 

 to the main river. At 6 p.m. we reached Shut, which is 

 situated on a flat spot at the top of a very sudden rise 

 from the plain of the Indus below. Here we camped in 

 an apricot grove. 



On the 25th I refused to march till I had had a tub 

 —though my men evidently considered it great waste 

 of time. But there was only a short distance to go, so 

 it did not matter, and we reached a suitable camping 

 ground in the nala above Shut before noon. This time 

 there being no shikari in the village, we secured a coolie 

 called Sultan Ali, who said he could take us next morn- 

 ing to where markhor were to be found. 



Accordingly the following day we were up early and 

 off in the gray dawn. Although cold, it was much warmer 

 than it had been on Burme, for the thermometer in my 

 tent only fell to 39" F. during the night. It took us up- 

 wards of an hour and a half, going along the winding curves 

 of the hillsides, before we reached a high bluff over- 

 hanofinsf the Indus and within sieht of Shut, from which 

 we hoped to be able to see markhor coming up for their 

 mid-day rest to a mass of precipitous rocks that lay to 



1 The !i in this name is pronounced exactly Y\kc the oo in foot. 



