A Day after Burhel 199 



thousand feet climb before beginning to spy. To 

 paraphrase John Bunyan, "He that is high need 

 fear no climb"; and that should be laid to heart 

 by the burhel hunter. The upper slopes below 

 the permanent snow-line were brightening yellow 

 under the sun, which was what we wanted ; for 

 without the sun's rays to throw objects into relief 

 burhel are most difficult to pick up. This, of 

 course, is true of most mountain game. 



Siring Namgyal, my stalker, was a pig- tailed 

 Ladaki, who, like most of his countrymen, pro- 

 fessed the religion of Bhudda. I may say, without 

 fear of contradiction, that his face would have 

 attracted attention anywhere. Smiling, wrinkled 

 and ugly, it had something in it which reminded 

 one at once of a gargoyle and a faun. The oddity 

 of his physiognomy was heightened by his black 

 lambskin cap, with flaps intended to keep the 

 ears warm, now turned up like horns. His squat 

 figure I had never seen otherwise than enveloped 

 in a dirty sheepskin cloak held in at the waist 

 with a girdle forming above a pouch which held, 

 next his own skin, a varied assortment of useful 

 things, his wooden drinking - cup, a ball of 

 tsampo, 1 an image- box, his chakmak, 2 and other 

 odds and ends. But these were not its only 

 uses, I have seen produced from this seemingly 



1 Tsampo = barley-meal. 2 Chakmak = flint and steel. 



