382 SPORT IN THE HIGHLANDS OF KASHMIR ch. xxi 



I call the ground awful on account of the great 

 labour involved in traversing it. It consists almost 

 entirely of broken slate, sometimes as finely comminuted 

 as sand, and sometimes in small pieces like those seen 

 below the workings of a slate quarry. Sometimes the 

 slate ddbris is many feet deep, and sometimes it lies 

 as a thin layer on hard clay, but whether the debris 

 be deep or shallow, it always lies at a very steep 

 angle, exactly as it has slipped down the hillside 

 from above. The moment the foot comes down on it 

 the sportsman sinks up to his ankle if it be deep, slid- 

 ing at the same time some distance down the hill ; or if 

 it be shallow, he slides downwards over the hard clay 

 and frequently falls. On the deep stuff it is easy enough 

 to go downwards, but laborious to keep on one level, 

 and very hard work to ascend. On the shallow it is 

 next door to impossible to move at all, and almost the 

 only way in which progress can be made is to put the 

 feet on such bare patches as can be found here and 

 there, from which the slate has altogether slipped 

 down. 



Nearly the whole time I was after burhel and uryal 

 I was on ground of this kind. Burhel sometimes get 

 amongst granite rocks and sand, where the difficult 

 ground I have described occurs only in patches, but 

 uryal apparently never leave this slate shale, and the 

 labour of stalking them is severer than anything I have 

 ever done in pursuit of other game. 



We got back to camp an hour before dusk, very tired, 

 and very much disheartened. That evening I offered a 

 reward for the uryal's head, and arranged to send a man 



