MARKHOR KILLED 107 



up the following side. Taking the .303 I sat down and 

 aimed at the leader, who was walking slowly up the hill, 

 and who could not have been more than 150 yards off. 

 But I did not wait long enough to recover my breath, 

 and firing hurriedly, missed. The herd now set off fast, 

 but the ground was so fearfully bad, that even these sure- 

 footed beasts could hardly go faster than a walk, and I 

 knew I should have time ; so waiting to recover breath 

 I aimed again, and as the leader had gone round a rock, 

 fired at the second oroat. 



This time the shot told, and the markhor tumbled 

 headlong down the precipice. He fell clear, about 70 

 or 80 feet, and went with a smash into the rocks at the 

 bottom of the gully. From these the body rebounded, 

 and then went in a series of big rolls and jumps, down 

 the excessively steep floor of the gully till it disappeared 

 from view round a bend. " What bad luck, utterly 

 smashed!" said Abdulla, as I looked ruefully at the 

 gorge, down which a regular hailstorm of stones was 

 following the dead markhor. I did not see how the 

 horns could escape that fearful fall, and I was very vexed 

 at the bad luck which seemed to attend me. Here I had 

 knocked over a decent markhor, and the only part of him 

 I wanted was probably lying smashed into pieces some 

 hundreds of feet below. Thinking I could get to the 

 animal, we climbed down to the patch of grazing the 

 herd had been on when I first fired, calling out to Sultan 

 All to follow us. There were no traces of the horns 

 anywhere there, and Abdulla and the other went lower. 

 From a projecting rock they called out to me that they 

 could see the markhor a long way below, and that they 



