368 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



Years ago, when in Kashmir, my wife and I had discussed 

 every possible and impossible means of getting at the noble 

 beast, but the more we talked with those most likely to know, the 

 more we were convinced of the hopelessness of any attempt in 

 the then state of affairs, and we had to content ourselves with 

 the thought that when in the Gilgit country we had been 

 within sixty or seventy miles as the crow flies from the inacces- 

 sible Pamir. 



I may remark here, in passing, that to the Russians 

 Karelin and Severtzoff is due the honour of having brought to 

 Europe the first entire specimens of Poli. I believe the mem- 

 bers of the Yarkand Expedition can claim ' first blood ' amongst 

 Englishmen. 



As I looked at those old rams, some browsing, some lying 

 down, my thoughts wandered back a dozen years to when on 

 the slopes of that stupendous Nanga Parbat in Astor on a 

 misty morning in May, three ibex (the smallest 38 ins.) 

 bit the dust. Again my imagination jumped forward to an 

 autumn in the ' Frosty Caucasus ' when three right royal red 

 deer stags fell in almost as many seconds. On occasions 

 like these one's thoughts are always rose-coloured. It is only 

 the red-letter days which come forward. Pushed into the 

 background are the long trying stalks, when perhaps for an hour 

 you have stood up to your knees in an icy stream, not daring 

 to move, for movement meant instant detection : forgotten, too, 

 is that last critical moment when, as your head rose higher and 

 higher above the rock which had been your objective point for 

 hours, your hopes sank lower and lower until the hideous 

 truth became plain to you that the head which you had almost 

 counted as your own had gone never to gladden your eyes 

 again ; or it may be that there was even worse luck to forget, 

 when wind, or light, or a tired man's laboured breathing had to 

 account for a '500 Express bullet driven by six drachms of powder 

 just over a big beast's back ! 



The rams we had sighted were on the other side of the 

 valley, the bottom of which was about a mile and a half wide, 



