72 BAD GROUND. 



shikaree, and myself started with the intention of huntin| 

 over the heights above and joining the camp in the evening. 

 Much of the ground we had to get over was decidedly 

 bad. On some of the steep slopes we traversed the grass 

 was, at this season, so dry and slippery as to make the 

 foothold very precarious, and they, as often as not, termi- 

 nated abruptly on the brink of a sheer precipice. I must 

 say I was rather staggered at the look of one very awkward 

 place we came to, which there was no means of avoiding. 

 As seen from below, it appeared to me to be a nearly per- 

 pendicular craggy precipice of at least fifteen hundred feet 

 high. But our guide said it was quite practicable, and 

 as it had to be scaled, there was no use looking at it — for 

 the more one looks the less one likes such a place, — we 

 therefore commenced the ascent. It was not so difficult, 

 however, as it at first appeared, except in a few places 

 where one or other of my companions had sometimes to 

 place a hand from below on the nearly vertical face of some 

 smooth rock for a step ; there were juniper-bushes, too, 

 here and there by which we could hold on. On nearing 

 the top, it was decidedly unpleasant to look back, and I 

 was very glad when we reached it. I was then but a 

 neophyte in mountaineering on the upper Himalayan ranges, 

 or I should probably have thought little of such a climb. 



" Kustoora ! " suddenly ejaculated Kurbeer, just as we 

 topped the ascent. A musk-deer had jumped up close to 

 us, and was standing at gaze on the ridge. All breathless 

 as I was, I fired, and felt sure the animal was hit, although 

 it made off. We soon discovered it standing on a little 

 ledge of rock below the brow of the ridge. I could easily 

 have finished it with another shot, but if it fell from the 

 ledge there was nothing to prevent its going to the bottom 

 of the rocky steep below it, by a much quicker route than 

 the one we had taken in coming up. As it looked very 

 sick, Kurbeer volunteered to clamber down and try to se- 

 cure it. The danger of such a proceeding did not striki; 



