THE -500 EXPRESS. 93 



Having been so unsuccessful with the three " big uns " in my nullah, I 

 decided to leave them for a bit and try another place further up the river 

 and on the other bank, so started with the shuldarie and a week's 

 provisions. It was evening by the time we reached a suitable camp ; and 

 while reclining in my tent, a herd of small ones came by, and were seen 

 by one of my men who was returning from the nearest village ; he said 

 they were not worth following, so I let them alone. 



A lovely clear sky greeted us when the day broke ; we had left the tent 

 in the grey dawn, and clambered up over rock and grass until almost on 

 the top of one of the main ridges running down from the mountain chain 

 of everlasting snow, 25,000ft. high. The tracks of ibex were everywhere, 

 and soon my sharp-sighted villager spotted some ; they were in a most 

 inaccessible spot, on the other side of a huge, bare cleft in the ridge ; but 

 as my glasses could promise nothing very good, I left them alone. About 

 nine o'clock we reached the edge of a very steep and rocky gorge, 

 immediately below perfect walls of cliffs, with other gorges and ridges 

 beyond. The ground was so cut up and difficult, that I squatted under a 

 friendly overhanging rock, reading, while my two men clambered up 

 higher, and scanned the ground from the crest ; they were under a good 

 screen of small arbutus, which had found a spot to exist on here and 

 there, on the very edge of the precipices. About half-an-hour elapsed 

 before one of them returned to say they had discovered some game on the 

 other side of the gorge, so I took the '500 and clambered up to see. 

 From my point under an arbutus, I could see nothing good, nor any way 

 to reach them, unless I could scale the cliffs to my left and then descend 

 further on, so as to get a shot from above. After a discussion, we decided 

 not to attempt such an awful task, but to wait and watch from where we 

 were. 



While so employed, spread out on the rough herbage and rock, we were 

 presently startled by the alarm-note of a female ; looking up to my left in 

 the direction whence the sound proceeded, I discovered two gazing down 

 at us, not two hundred yards away. They had evidently clambered out of 

 the gorge at some point higher up the ridge, but did not cross from the 

 ibex we had been .watching. Not a move did we make, just squinting 

 out of the corners of our eyes, and praying they would move on and not 

 alarm the herd. At last they moved away slowly, stopping twice to 

 examine us again, and then literally bounded away in a manner one could 

 not believe that any animal could go on such ground ; they whistled a 

 couple of times, but the slight breeze there was blew past instead of 

 towards us, so we could hope the others were not alarmed. 



Having turned our attention to the far side of the gorge again, we 

 could see nothing, and were in despair, but presently a female clambered 

 up into view, crossing over into our side, and being followed by four small 

 males; then came two bigger males, and after a halt and good look round, 

 they plunged out of sight, moving towards us. At once the older man 

 and myself clambered up higher, so as to reach the spot where the two 



