PRELIMINARIES 3 



which case I might not be able to get the 

 " nullah," or valley, which I wanted. 



The " leave season " in India is from the 

 1 5th of April to the i5th of October; but 

 generally a few men manage to get away 

 by the ist of April ; consequently we deter- 

 mined that nothing would induce us to re- 

 main on the wrong side of the passes after 

 the 3ist of March. 



My " shikari" (or stalker) pointed out 

 that I must not be disappointed if we did 

 not get much sport for the first month, for, 

 he said, the season was a full two months 

 later than usual on account of the severity 

 of the winter. And he added, that when the 

 pass was crossed there would still be two 

 difficulties to encounter. The first being 

 that the hills would be under snow, and con- 

 sequently there would be no green grass to 

 tempt the ibex down from the crags, where 

 alone there would be grass of any kind, not 

 very palatable stuff certainly, but still food 

 of sorts, growing in the niches of the rocks, 

 where the cliffs were too steep for the snow 



