AMONG THE SNOW PEAKS 59 



and thought their last hour had come, caUing on the 

 Hindu Trinity and the devta of this moimtain to protect 

 them. 



Soon, however, the overcharged atmosphere became 

 less electric, and the storm passed on up the valley, con- 

 centrating to expend its forces about the summits of 

 Nanda Devi, twelve miles away, whence for some time 

 there came the waves of distant reverberations, repeated 

 many times by the echoes from the glaciers and rocks, 

 showing that up there a very pretty racket was still 

 going on ; till, like all things else, it came to an end, with 

 sullen and fitful rumblings. By the time the thar 

 kidneys and brains were cooked and the tea made, the 

 cloud cleared away and revealed a white, cold scene most 

 beautiful, and strangely contrasting with the warm and 

 summer^' conditions of the morning. The natives 

 regaled themselves with slices of thar's meat roasted on 

 sticks, and the meal was partaken of with the best sauce . 

 Punoo dished up his best shikar stories while we smoked 

 our post-prandial weed, and he improvised a pipe out of a 

 rhubarb leaf rolled up and held in the hand. Punoo 

 described how he had stalked a huge buck thar, and got 

 so close to him that he could almost touch the beast 

 where he slept with the muzzle of his long matchlock, but 

 when he pulled the trigger the match went down true 

 on to the touch-hole and the powder fizzed (all which he 

 described in pantomime), and the old banduk went off 

 with a bang which knocked him on to his back. But 

 the thar, which was the biggest he had ever seen, went 

 away unhurt, for he had forgotten to place an offering 

 on the shrine of the devta who had charge of the 

 mountain, and he of course had tampered with the gun 

 and withdrawn the golis, or bullets, consisting of six bits 

 of old iron and some hard pebbles on top of a handful of 



