126 SPORT IN THE HIGHLANDS OF KASHMIR chap. 



herd practically unobserved, and indeed right up to the 

 best animal it contained, and I had made a ghastly mess 

 of the whole business. Abdulla looked ready to cry 

 with vexation, and I am afraid his opinion of my shoot- 

 ing, after this display and the miss of the bear the 

 preceding day, must have been very low indeed. 



Thinking that possibly something might be wrong 

 with the weapon, I made the men, on the way back, put 

 up a stone, about a foot long and 8 inches wide, at the edge 

 of the stream, and sitting down on a rock above, nearly as 

 far off as I had been from the ibex, I fired two shots at 

 it without any particular aim. Each time I hit the stone 

 plump, so clearly nothing was wrong with either the 

 weapon or the ammunition, and the disgraceful shot I 

 had made was solely attributable to myself. There was 

 not much said going back, but, like the Irishman's 

 parrot, the men must have thought a lot, and I was so 

 wretched I felt inclined for nothing. I had a miserable 

 night, waking every now and then to see that ibex 

 looming up within shot-gun distance, and then to 

 remember that I had missed him. 



None of us were particularly happy, I think, when 

 we started, shortly after dawn next morning, for some 

 rocky ground overhanging the Indus, Dingo was with 

 us again, as Sultan Ali had gone after the bear. We 

 went down the nala, and then up the western side to 

 examine some steep cliffs believed to hold markhor. 

 When we were about half-way up, during a short halt, 

 we detected a herd of ibex near the snow- line, and 

 Abdulla said that it must be the one fired at last night, 

 because he noticed an old male which was exceedingly 



