39 



THE BIG MARKHOR. 



The things we know are neither rich nor rare, 

 But wonder how the devil they got there. 



SUCH were the words which kept recurring to me 

 as Gul Sher and I sat watching the herd from 

 our cranny, high up in the Shingye Glen. The 

 long telescope had been propped up on rocks and 

 pointed towards some grassy ledges in the middle 

 of a sheer face of rock on the opposite side of 

 the valley three thousand yards or more away. 

 Even with the forty -power glass the markhor 

 appeared absurdly minute as they moved about 

 the rocks and nibbled the dry autumn grass. 



Pope's lines about the fly in amber seemed 

 peculiarly appropriate. " How the devil," indeed ! 

 For as far as we could see there was absolutely 

 no path leading across the great scarp of black 

 rock to their lofty grazing ground. But where 

 nothing else can go, the markhor, biggest and 

 most majestic of all the wild goats, wanders with 

 ease, to find among dizzy precipices his refuge 



