128 MARMOTS. 



pass, though short and comparatively easy, was nevertheless 

 pretty steep and rough. Silver birches now took the place of 

 conifers, and still higher, tangled masses of juniper bushes 

 spread themselves widely over the open hillsides, which were 

 craggy, broken, and here and there covered with patches of 

 snow. On the pass, which is 12,000 feet high, where our 

 track was almost level for some distance, the snow still lay 

 very deep, and we often sank up to the knees in it. Several 

 times we had to wade through a half-frozen stream, from 

 the cold of which our legs were tolerably well protected by 

 the jmttees that were bound round them ; but our feet, on 

 which we wore only poolas over our stockings, suffered 

 terribly. Fortunately the sky was overcast with clouds, for, 

 on the higher ranges, if the eyes are not protected with a col- 

 oured veil or goggles, the sun's glare off the snow frequently 

 causes temporary blindness, which sometimes lasts for several 

 days. 



We saw numbers of marmots, here called " drin," among 

 the loose fragments of rock that had slipped from the flank- 

 ing heights, and were piled together in confused heaps, off 

 which the snow had partially melted. The creatures, on ob- 

 serving us, would sit up on their hind-legs and utter their 

 shrill, chirping cry, like a loud dog-whistle blown sharp and 

 short, which sounded quite eerie as it broke the frozen still- 

 ness around. They frequently let us approach within small- 

 shot distance, but if not shot quite dead, they instantly dived 

 down among the interstices of the rocks, from which it was 

 impossible to get them out. These marmots are considerably 

 larger than the Alpine ones. Their general colour is yellow- 

 ish below, and reddish-brown intermixed with black above. 



After crossing the pass, a little episode occurred which 

 shows the folly of two men attempting to hunt over the same 

 ground. As it was still early in the day, Ramzan suggested 

 that we might take a turn down over some steep craggy 

 ground below our route, where he said we might at this early 



