WAITING FOR A RAM TO RISE. 341 



the Niti padfin, who was travelling by another route, had 

 brought up a lot of letters and newspapers for me ; so I at 

 once despatched a messenger to overhaul him, the arrival of 

 a post-bag being as welcome and exciting an event as it was 

 an unusual one in this remote region. 



The ground now became more tiresome to traverse ; the 

 sides of the deep ravines we had to cross in our next day's 

 work along the base of the Himalayan slopes being very 

 abrupt, and the earth of which they were composed rotten 

 and friable from constant frosts. The elevation, too, being 

 considerably higher than that of the table-lands below, we 

 consequently had " bellows to mend " pretty often, owing to 

 the constant succession of ups and downs. Away up on the 

 steep slopes above where we intended to camp, we made out 

 with the telescope a flock of some twenty Oves Ammon, but all 

 of them were ewes and lambs. Five or six burrell rams were 

 also descried lower down, and to these we at once devoted our 

 energies. We had managed to get round well above them, as 

 we thought, when Puddoo, who was leading, suddenly caught 

 sight of a single ram that was still slightly above us, at what 

 looked to be well over 200 yards off. By great good luck he 

 did not detect us from the commanding position he occupied, 

 before we had made ourselves as flat as possible behind a 

 hummock. As a burrell is not so big a mark as an Ovis 

 Ammon, and there was such a gale of wind blowing as to 

 make accurate shooting almost impossible, I refrained from 

 attempting to take him at so great a disadvantage, hoping 

 that we might eventually get nearer, until presently he lay 

 down where he was. The sun had now sunk behind the 

 snowy Himalayan summits, and still the burrell did not 

 move. At long-last he rose, and as it had grown too late 

 for us to wait until he thought proper to shift his ground, I 

 decided to risk a long shot. He was standing broadside on, 

 with the upper half of his body showing against the sky, 

 and the strong wind was blowing from directly behind him ; 

 so taking as steady an aim as rude Boreas would permit, I 



