192 SEARCH FOR A TALISMAN. 



Besides the superstition respecting the snake-eating pro- 

 pensity of the markhor, there is another entertained regard- 

 ing a small, smooth, dark-green stone ^ which is sometimes 

 found among the entrails of very old bucks. My attention 

 was drawn to this when, before starting for the hill in the 

 early morning, the shikarees made straight for the spot 

 where they had, the night before, carefully deposited the 

 gralloch of the markhor. They rather unwillingly informed 

 me, with the utmost gravity, that they were going to search 

 for the said stone, which, amongst other properties they be- 

 lieved it possessed, was that of its being an infallible anti- 

 dote to the poison of snake-bite if applied to the wound. 

 Whether they found this talisman or not I failed to dis- 

 cover — and in all probability, had they done so, they would 

 have kept it " dark," for fear of my depriving them of it. 



As we proceeded upward we started a musk-deer, at which 

 I was very nearly " letting loose," and glad I was that she 

 escaped, for on getting up to the bed from which she had 

 risen, we found her suckling offspring lying on it. After 

 following far on the tracks of our friends of the previous 

 evening, seeing nothing but a few does with kids at foot, we 

 returned to camp, which had been brought up during the day. f 



It now seemed as though the good luck we had hitherto ■' 

 enjoyed were about to desert us, for the last day we spent 

 on this ground was fraught with " grief." 



Early in the day, as we were clambering across a break- 

 neck place, I was startled at hearing a sharp exclamation, 

 as if caused by pain, from Hatha, who was following at a 

 short distance behind. In climbing along the rugged face 

 of the steep slope we were traversing, he had in some way 

 managed to wrench his shoulder, which, being weak from 

 former dislocations, had now slipped out again. As he 



^ Bezoar, a calculous concretion sometimes found in the stomach of certain 

 animals of the goat tribe. The term comes from a Persian word meaning 

 antidote, which this substance was absurdly supposed to be, and is still by- 

 Orientals, to the fatal effects of poison. 



