CHAPTER V. 

 IBEX, 



I WAS unable to get any leave next season, but had a good turn on 

 detachment in a hill-station for the mouths of May and June. I was 

 often after leopards, but never saw one. A bunyiah (vendor of grain 

 foods) shot a very good specimen at a cross-road within a quarter of a 

 mile of camp, with an old match-lock. Such is lack ! 



The succeeding year I was more fortunate, and determined to visit the 

 ibex in gme of his strongholds. Kashmir was crowded out before I could 

 have reached any decent ground, so I moved into some wild country by 

 another route. On my way I met an old Forest Department officer, who 

 made my mouth water with his tales of ibex, whose heads I might 

 see at places he mentioned, where they were arranged on piles of 

 stone. He had spent winters in their haunts, and had shot them 

 under the favourable circumstances existing some five-aud -twenty years 

 before my time. Rifles were muzzle-loaders then, and by no means 

 express, but all game was much more plentiful, less harassed, and 

 therefore less wary. 



For this game the best glasses procurable are necessary, as it is often 

 at a great distance they are sighted, and careful scrutiny is imperative to 

 save the sportsman a useless and exhausting clamber. Binocular telescopes 

 1 have not recommended, but lately I saw a pair by Steward that can be 

 carried by anyone in the breast-pocket, which I strongly approve of : 

 they supply a long-felt want. 



After much trouble and tribulation I reached the foot of a snowy pass, 

 over which I had to climb to find any of the game I required ; one other 

 brother of the rifle was there before me, waiting for the pass to open, 

 only two or three natives having come over it with the greatest 

 difficulty. Next day it was more open, and a large batch of hungry 

 villagers appeared on the snow above, on their way into more hospitable 

 regions to buy food after the rigorous winter. We had an awful clamber 

 up, especially over the glaciers, where footholds for each step had to be 

 cut with a small axe, in the hands of an old stager amongst the coolies. 

 The glare was blinding, but my servants and I had dark goggles, so were 

 not much troubled ; the poor coolies hung rags over their eyes to gain 

 some slight shade. Once on top of the pass, between 15,000ft. and 

 16,000ft., we had an easy time, the descent being much facilitated by the 

 long slides we all made down the steep, loose snow on the north side of 

 the range ; the hot mid-day sun and cold nights, with frost, had formed 



