THE NILGIRI IBEX 



time, but hot until I revisited them upon a sub- 

 sequent occasion did I succeed in bagging one. 



In 1886 I went out for a few days' shooting 

 to Neilgherry Peak, a fine sambur-ground and a 

 locality in which ibex were sometimes to be found. 

 I had taken out a small tent which was pitched in a 

 sholah (or dense cover) near a clear stream of good 

 water. I hoped to obtain a little sambur shooting, 

 and I knew also that there was a chance, but only 

 a chance, of my seeing ibex, since they merely 

 occasionally visited the locality which I was about 

 to work. This ground I had been over only a few 

 days previously from the bungalow of a relative 

 (who lived a lonely life upon an estate a few miles 

 off), but upon that occasion I failed to obtain either 

 a shot at sambur or even a glimpse of an ibex. 



One misty afternoon, I went out from camp and 

 proceeded towards a tract where the open grass 

 hills, with sholahs in the dips between, sloped down 

 to the large forest, which, interspersed with rocky 

 precipices, and everywhere exceedingly steep, 

 stretched sheer down into the low country of the 

 Wynaad (or Malabar). Here, in the evening, I 

 hoped to see sambur emerge from the dense 

 sholahs, or from the edge of the large forest, to 

 graze in the open. 



I was making my way to a commanding knoll, 

 when I suddenly discovered that I had forgotten 

 to bring my pipe, or my tobacco, I forget which, 

 and I therefore sent one of the two men out with 

 me back to camp to fetch the missing article, but 

 as he was a long time in returning, and since I 



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