60 SHIKAR 



scenery. The clouds of vapour, after an apparently 

 internal struggle, would transform themselves into trans- 

 parent draperies of varied form and strength of light 

 the rays of the rising sun struggling with the misty 

 impediments to the general diffusion of his genial beams, 

 here and there penetrating through them, then anon re- 

 pulsed and excluded when the curtain, as it were, 

 dropped over the scene, and chill gloom again reigned 

 around. The lower ranges of the mountains, which yes- 

 terday were free from snow, were now shrouded in its 

 white mantle, what was rain below, falling as snow above ; 

 in consequence of which the ibex haunts were pronounced 

 quite impracticable for the present. So I patiently 

 awaited the favourable time, and rested quite satisfied in 

 gazing on and admiring the ever-changing, and always 

 beautiful, natural effects developing themselves around 

 me, until breakfast ; after which the shikarries came, and 

 shouldering the guns, the hour being now propitious, we 

 directed our steps for the mountain on which we had lately 

 discovered the ibex. 



This time we ascended by the opposite side to the very 

 summit of the mountain, our path lying nearly the whole 

 distance over a snow-drift filling a ravine, down which, 

 under the snow, rushed a roaring torrent, appearing at 

 intervals of the ascent, where from sudden vertical de- 

 scents it dashed down in foaming cascades, flashing, 

 sparkling, glittering in open day for a moment, again to 

 go muttering and rumbling under the super-incumbent 

 masses of snow, again to gain partial freedom, until un- 

 dergoing various similar alternations it emerged into the 

 main torrent that, pursuing its troubled course down 

 this small valley, adds its tributary waters to the Wurd- 

 wan river. 



Many fissures were crossed, disclosing the dark waters 



