270 SPORT IN THE HIGHLANDS OF KASHMIR chap 



unfavourable, so we gave them up for the day and came 

 home. In the evening I took a photograph of the 

 Chamarta Chu valley, as seen from the front of our tents. 



Next morning we started after the burhel, and about 

 8 A.M. arrived at the end of the nala, where we had seen 

 them the previous afternoon. There was a patch of 

 grass up one side of this, and above, nothing but broken 

 slate lying as it had slipped down, right up to the top of 

 the ridge. The opposite side had no grass, as it con- 

 sisted of nothing but broken slate. We had been going 

 over a lot of this kind of ground the day before, and 

 found it very severe work. Judging from what I saw 

 then and since, slate rocks and shale are apparently what 

 burhel prefer to live on, just as Ovis amnion are partial 

 to rolling uplands of granite sand and gravel. 



For nearly two hours we searched the hillsides, but 

 saw no signs of burhel. So we came down to the grass 

 of the valley and had breakfast. 



About noon we started up one of the side glens, 

 and after about an hour — ^when we were some 500 or 600 

 feet below its top — we saw the herd on the sky-line 

 going quietly. We crouched behind rocks at once, and 

 watched the animals till they had passed out of sight. 

 Then leaving the ponies below, we three started after 

 the herd. We had counted eleven sheep, of whom two 

 seemed to have fairly good heads. The climb was very 

 steep and hard, being over broken slate rocks, which were 

 continually giving way under our feet. When we reached 

 the top, we found that the burhel had not gone very far, 

 and were about 60 or 70 yards beyond a small rise in the 

 hillside. We could see one of them looking back, but 



