CHAPTER XII 



MAY 31 TO JUNE 12 KUTYAL TO MISHKIN 



Moved camp — Snow leopard — Failure — Twelfth ibex — Photographs — 

 Moved camp down nala — Barchu — Darsu — Sarsal — Discussion as to 

 route to be next taken — Spare luggage to be sent to Astor — No water on 

 Burme — -Rain-water used — March to snow — Blank days — Churi Lat — 

 Sarkondbari Lake — Threatened desertion of coolies — Actual desertion 

 at Bunji — Change of route — Maya Dass — Rondu Mishkin. 



The next day, the 31st of May, was a blank. We went 

 up the httle nala on the glacier, which was a small scale 

 copy of the one in Jutyal, but without its magnificent 

 surroundings. Only a few females and kids being seen, 

 we settled to move into the southern branch nala on the 

 ist of June, This we accordingly did, the shikari, Chand, 

 a local coolie, and I, starting shortly after dawn. 



We had been walking about an hour or so, and were 

 coming close to a small temporary village, occupied during 

 the summer for grazing cattle on the neighbouring hill- 

 sides, when the local coolie quietly remarked, " There's a 

 leopard." We stopped at once, and looking up in the 

 direction the man indicated by his face, I saw a snow 

 leopard ^ lying on a rock. Only his head and a part of 

 his long thick tail hanging down over the rock were 



^ Felis Hilda. 



