AFTER BROWN BEARS. 127 



The lovely scenery of Nouboog Nye is the more indelibly 

 impressed on my memory from my having, in after years, 

 passed many a happy day hunting the " hangul " (Cashmere 

 stag) in its forests, which were then, whatever they may be 

 now, a favourite resort of this noble animal during the 

 autumn and winter months. 



Shortly after starting next morning, as we neared the head 

 of the Nye our surroundings assumed a much wilder char- 

 acter, and the path became more and more steep. The latter 

 now led close beside the stream, which up here took the form 

 of a rushing torrent as it dashed over rocks and fallen pine- 

 trunks that lay in and across it in the wildest confusion. 

 After pitching our little tents on a small grassy flat a short 

 distance below the pass, there being still several hours of 

 daylight left, we took our rifles and sallied forth, each in a 

 different direction, with our shikarees, on the chance of get- 

 ting a shot at a deer or a brown bear, either of which animals 

 Ramzan said might here be met with. 



Judging from the fresh tracks, hangul must have been 

 pretty numerous, although we saw none. And even had we 

 found a stag, he would most probably have been hornless, as 

 these deer have generally shed their horns by the end of 

 April. As for brown bears, I had ocular proof of their being 

 plentiful there, for I saw five. First we espied three to- 

 gether, but they had unfortunately got our wind, and were in 

 full retreat. Just as it was getting dark we saw two others 

 eating the green grass on an open space at the bottom of a 

 gully flanked with birches. By the time we got near them, 

 the light was so bad that I was unable to see the fore-sight 

 of the rifle, but the loud response made by one of them to my 

 shot, showed that it had told. The beast, however, made off 

 with its companion, and it was too dark to follow it up. 



As the snow on the pass would be easier for our laden mm 

 to travel over \vli.-n hard frozen in the early morning, we 

 were off again at the first break of dawn. The ascent to the 



