RAMZAN MEER, SHIKAREE. 125 



rice for our followers, as we were told that food for them would 

 not be procurable in "Wurdwan. Here also I was lucky enough 

 to secure the services of a well-known shikaree. This man's 

 demeanour was totally different from that of the sham one I 

 had had the misfortune to already engage. Eamzan Meer was 

 a grave, taciturn, little old fellow, very much addicted to snuft', 

 and was not, at first sight, either in appearance or costume, 

 the sort of person one would have taken for the first-rate hun- 

 ter he really was. He was dressed in the loose wide-sleeved 

 garment of light woollen cloth commonly worn by Cash- 

 merees, which reached almost to his feet. His waist was girt 

 with a white kummerband (sash), without so much as the knife, 

 invariably carried by Mohammedans, visible, and his head 

 was loosely wrapped round with a huge white and very clean 

 turban. But there was something about his eyes which spoke 

 volumes. The Srinuggur man was, on the contrary, a noisy 

 hulking fellow, got up in the conventional impostor style, with 

 belt bristling with sporting appurtenances, and who was con- 

 tinually boasting of his exploits with his former employer, and 

 what he now intended to perform with his present one. Nor 

 was I'amzan, though a good man and true in many respects, 

 quite " straight " where his own interests were concerned, for I 

 learnt from a brother sportsman I afterwards met in Wurdwan, 

 that he (Kamzan) had a prior engagement with him, by letter ; 

 but thinking, I suppose, that "a bird in hand is worth two in 

 the bush," he had taken service with me. I owe it in gratitude 

 to this true sportsman (an officer then belonging to the 27th 

 Foot), to record that, on my hearing the facts of the case, and 

 offering to give the man up, he generously refused to deprive 

 me of his valuable services. And here, as a sample of the 

 dangers which sometimes attend mountain hunting. I may 

 also chronicle a narrow escape that this same sportsman told 

 me of his having made shortly Ixjfore I met him. He and his 

 men were after a herd of ibex, and had but just crossed a steep 

 gully, when a tremendous avalanche of rocks and stones thun- 



