296 Sport and Life in the Further Himalaya 



fowl way. But as we were climbing up the big 

 boulder-covered dam, the faint metallic note of 

 wild geese made us look up. A skein of geese 

 were flying high in the heavens. Catching sight 

 of the water below them they suddenly dropped 

 their long necks, and with a rush of pinions came 

 swooping and diving straight downwards. The 

 sky was dark with clouds behind them, but the 

 setting sun lit the great birds up, making them 

 flash like silver against the gloom. The effect 

 was one a Japanese artist might have transferred 

 to canvas, but no one else. Murderous thoughts 

 prevailed, however, and we stalked them ; but 

 their wary eyes must have caught sight of a cap 

 or bent back among the rocks, for they got up a 

 long way off, and Topkhana again belched forth 

 his three and a half ounces of B.B. in vain. 



The next act in the career of the " Alys " was 

 far from this, on the Tibetan border. She had, 

 in the meantime, been carried to Srinagar, where 

 she had floated on the picturesque water-street 

 of this eastern city of gondolas, and from there 

 to Leh, whence she had accompanied me on a 

 trip to Tibet. Eeturning from this, my way 

 lay by the Indus, here a slow stream meandering 

 from side to side in a wide sandy plain. After 

 weeks of continual riding with the caravan, it 



