Shoots round a Hill Station 



thoughts ran on serow, an animal that a month 

 before I had never heard of. This time I was 



accompanied by one L , a young subaltern, 



whose only experience of "shikar" had been 

 sitting up once for a tiger that never came. We 

 got out some twenty miles and camped on the 

 open, grassy slopes, with the forest below and the 

 deep ravine where I had missed the serow within 

 sight. Woodyatt had need of Hira Singh else- 

 where, so I took another Gurwali, named Joarou, 

 a very thin man, quiet as a cat as a rule, and able 

 to go all day. He wore invariably a very ancient 

 karkhi jacket, and his own legs unencumbered; but 

 rather fancied his cap, which was round and made 

 of velvet, worn d la militaire. In moments of 

 intense excitement he would pull it off and stuff it 

 into his mouth, to prevent himself shouting, I 

 suppose. 



Our first night was very cold and wet ; how- 

 ever, we didn't mind such trifles, and after dinner 

 drank success to our rifles in port wine, inadver- 

 tently finishing the supply that was meant for 

 the trip. 



Next morning we were up and away at 4.30 a.m., 

 and after a little turn round the top to look for 

 gural, I dived down into the ravines after serow. 

 I might have been hunting the snark himself for 

 all I could see of them, and eventually striking 

 fresh tracks of a bear, I followed them at best pace 



23 



