PREFACE 



ALTHOUGH I had served in India for ten 

 years in a native regiment, many of the 

 officers of which had had experience of hill 

 shooting, and some of them of ibex shoot- 

 ing in Cashmere, I had found it impossible 

 to gather any idea of the general principles 

 on which an ibex expedition should be 

 conducted, and this partly because sports- 

 men are as a rule better narrators of in- 

 cidents than exponents of theories, and 

 partly because they seem to be incapable 

 of grasping the extent of the questioner's 

 ignorance of the conditions which determine 

 the nature of the sport in question ; more- 

 over, the training of a young soldier makes 

 him diffident about monopolizing the time 

 of his seniors. 



My experience in this matter is a common 



