I30 SPORT IN THE HIGHLANDS OF KASHMIR chap. 



herd had gone out of sight in some of the hollows of the 

 ridge, he actually lay down ! 



Evidently he was quite unconscious of our presence, 

 so, leaving Chand, the rest of us instantly got up, and 

 proceeding to the end of the ridge we were on, set off 

 scrambling down to the third ridge, where the ibex was. 

 In about ten or fifteen minutes we were down on the 

 eastern side of it, and going up to the edge I peered 

 cautiously over. The patriarch was nowhere to be seen ! 

 This was extremely bad luck, as we had marked him 

 down to a particular rock only a quarter of an hour 

 before, and the wind was still in our favour. Gradually 

 we worked our way along, keeping under shelter of the 

 crest, and compelled to go slowly by the badness of the 

 ground. Still not an ibex to be seen anywhere. 



Presently we caught sight of them, and discovered 

 that they had taken the opportunity, while we were 

 scrambling down, to cross the gully that divided the 

 third ridge from the foot of the perpendicular bl-uff 

 alluded to above. When therefore we sighted them, the 

 whole lot, including the patriarch, were standing on 

 the opposite side of the gully and calmly looking at us. 

 They were, as it turned out, some 400 or 500 yards 

 from us, and obviously considered themselves perfectly 

 safe. Immediately above and behind there rose, what 

 looked like a perpendicular wall of rock, going straight 

 to the top of the bluff Apparently they were thinking 

 of going up this, as they were dotted about, some on 

 higher and some on lower parts of the rock. 



Seeing that concealment was no longer of any use, 

 and that there was a probability of many shots, as the 



