82 MARKHOR. 



to repay you for the long and toilsome marches, the inferior, ill-cooked 

 food, and the general hardships you have undergone in order to reach his 

 majesty's dominions. "What can compare with the patience with which 

 he will stand motionless for some quarter of an hour, gazing from his 

 narrow ledge directly at you, or into the broad valley down at the gorge's 

 mouth ? Must you not allow he looks grand, the " monarch of the glen," 

 and far surpasses anything you had imagined, even when well refreshed 

 with pages from Kinloch and other writers ? I think Landseer would 

 have christened a picture of this wild goat with a name more laudatory. 

 I can fix on none, not having a vocabulary comprehensive enough. So let 

 him rest, one of the Creator's most beautiful works, to the eye of a true 

 sportsman. 



I was after this splendid game in Kashmir, and had passed many weeks 

 wandering along the ranges with no success, when at last I found a 

 curious nullah with a good many in it. At first I had real hardship, rny 

 bedding not turning up, and the cold at night being intense, for it was well 

 on in October. I was nearly starved, too ; but when things had come 

 square, I had not much further cause to complain. Our camp was formed 

 amongst some leafless birch trees on the edge of a corrie in a ravine that 

 ran precipitately down into one of the large valleys of the range. As 

 there was no tent, only bedding and cooking utensils, there was nothing 

 to attract the attention of game save the smoke of our fire, which was 

 well concealed in under the rocks. It was precious cold that night, for 

 snow had fallen previously, but on a bed of dried fern I slept well, being 

 awakened once or twice by heavy stones crashing down the other side of 

 the ravine, which had probably been disturbed by game. 



At dawn we were up, packed the bedding. &c., and after a hasty break- 

 fast moved up the ravine, no game being visible and the precipices below 

 quite impassable from above. The men with the bedding were directed 

 to follow us up to the saddle of the mountain, and then go down to an 

 overhanging rock in the valley beyond, where I had bivouacked before. 

 As I clambered up I heard some stones falling, and suddenly saw a large 

 inarkhor coming down the opposite side, far above me, nearly a quarter of 

 a mile away. The goojur (cowherd) and I dropped where we were 

 on the edge of the corrie, and well we passed for stones in our grey 

 clothes. The two coolies behind were beckoned to lie down amongst the 

 rocks, and we turned our attention to the game. Down awful places he 

 clattered, a solitary old male, with a long black beard, white chest, and 

 good horns. In one place he tumbled on the loose debris and went 

 sprawling; but he soon recovered his feet, at the same time sending a 

 perfect cartload of stones down the gorge. He then turned to his left 

 along a ledge, under a rock and behind a lonely pine. There he turned to 

 the gorge, halted, and looked away to the valley two miles below, listening 

 to some cowherds who were holloaing in it. They soon stopped, and then 

 he turned his head and looked straight at us. We were so like the stones 

 and so immovable, though tortured with cramp in the legs, that he could 



