THE COUNTRY OF THE BHOTIAS 97 



which have still some of it, though climate and feeding 



have converted the hair more generally into wool.* There 



came along presently a great brown bear, shambling at a 



great pace through the juniper bushes, and looking over 



his shoulder in a quaint manner to where the dogs were 



yapping on the hill half a mile above us. He seemed to 



scent danger, for he changed his course and sloped off 



westward. We started to run to intercept him at a 



convenient dell which he was making for. My shikari 



Munnoo, an active young man, lean and hardy, led the 



way, carrying my second rifle. The high elevation, 16,000 



feet, made running almost an impossibility ; but we 



stniggled on, crashing through juniper scrub, until our 



breathing became too laboured to go forward, and we 



both threw ourselves down and panted. The bear did not 



suffer from the rarefied air, and only afforded a long shot 



as he scampered away down the hill. Whether he was 



hit or not was hard to tell, but he was so flurried that he 



seemed to roll himself into a ball and disappeared down 



the hillside like a stone, head over heels, bounding from 



point to point and disappearing into a dense mass of 



brushwood, far down the declivity and close to the edge 



of the torrent below. Bears seem to adopt this method 



of progression when they get nerv'ous from being suddenly 



disturbed or shot at. I have seen one drop out of a high 



tree without hesitation, and they do not seem to mind the 



fall in the least. 



Returning to camp, we found that the sun had been 



melting the snow above the tents in a jocose manner — in 



fact, rolling down huge snowballs at us, some of which 



had accumulated in their descent to masses of a ton 



* This wild sheep is described by Jerdon as the Ovis nahura : 

 smooth horns, rounded, directed upwards, backwards, and outwards 

 with a semicircular sweep, then the rounded points are recurv^ed for- 

 wards and inwards. 



7 



