A Vanishing Sport 1 1 7 



instinct teaches them to keep to ridges and 

 arrdtes during the avalanche season, and that 

 they are protected from the intense cold by a 

 thick undercoat of wonderful soft wool. But 

 every Chitrali knows well that ibex are under 

 the special protection of the mountain fairies, 

 the chief of whom lives among the icy pyra- 

 mids and high turrets of the great mountain 

 Tirich Mir. They know that when the earth- 

 quakes pass along these valleys, those specially 

 gifted can see hosts of fairies streaming across 

 the sky, riding on ibex and long-maned ponies. 

 Men and women are now living who have been 

 transported to the gleaming palaces of Tirich 

 Mir and seen their inhabitants and the ibex 

 that wander freely among them. Does not 

 history also relate how, when the country is 

 in urgent danger, fairies are seen by many, 

 with their ibex squadrons, riding to the Meh- 

 tar's assistance ? Does not every Kohistani 

 know that it was by their aid alone that the 

 army of the famous Sikh general, Bhup Singh, 

 was surrounded on the Gilgit road and every 

 man of them either killed or sold to the slave- 

 dealing Mirs of Shighnan and Koshan? 



The slaying of an ibex is therefore no light 

 matter. No shikari would venture to start on 

 a hunting trip without having first propitiated 



