132 



A WILD NIGHT UNDER CANVAS. 



or hard sloping snow. These sandals, or poolas, as they are 

 called, are made of thin rope of twisted rice-straw, and when 

 that is not procurable, of grass, or twisted strips of thin wet 

 bark. As they only stand at most one day's hard walking, a 

 great many pairs are worn out, but the Cashmerees can make 

 a pair in an hour or so. 



For the next day or two the rain, snow, and thunderstorms 

 were so incessant, and the mist clung so constantly to the 

 mountain-sides, that hunting was impossible. One night the 

 lightning flashed so continuously, and was so instantaneously 



followed by deafen- 

 ing peals of thunder, 

 that I sometimes felt 

 half inclined to get 

 up and remove my 

 guns from where 

 they usually lay 

 under my camp-bed ; 

 and the sleet and 

 hailstones that pelt- 

 ed on my little tent 

 seemed almost as 

 though they would 

 be driven through 

 the canvas by the force of the keen cold blast that came 

 howling down the glen. We made an attempt next morn- 

 ing to go up after ibex, but were soon beaten back by a 

 blinding snowstorm. I wounded a bear that had wandered 

 close to our camp, but lost him. To add to our troubles, 

 I found that our stock of rice was getting exhausted, and a 

 man I had sent down to fetch more from Marroo, the nearest 

 place where it was procurable, had returned without it. 



A consultation was now held, when it was agreed that we 

 should make for Marroo, by a way known to Ramzan over 

 the heights at the head of the glen we were in, hunting en 



A pair of Poolas, 



