SPORT AND TRAVEL 135 



be ice cold, for there had been a hard frost during 

 the night. 



After having successfully negotiated the eagle's 

 nest, we packed up and moved camp farther round 

 the mountain to a place called Shaputlu ; but finding 

 no signs of deer, or anything of interest in this neigh- 

 bourhood, I packed up again on March 20 and sent 

 my camp outfit in charge of Dr. Carpuzza to the other 

 side of the mountain. Then with Achmet I went 

 over the mountain, rejoining the pack train late in 

 the afternoon. During our long tramp in the snow 

 we did not see even the track of a deer. As I had 

 intended to stop a week in this camp, we sent our 

 pack horses off to the nearest village at the foot of the 

 hills as soon as they were unloaded, and then set to 

 work to get our tents up, as bad weather threatened. 



We had pitched our camp in an open meadow be- 

 tween two little streams of water, but just beneath 

 a slope of the mountain covered with pine forest. 

 Below us the ground was free from snow, but it lay in 

 deep banks just above us. We had only just got the 

 tents up when heavy showers of sleety rain com- 

 menced to fall and continued to do so without cessa- 

 tion, all through the night. Just as day was breaking 

 the next morning, this sleety rain changed to snow, 

 which came down so thickly that the meadow below 

 us, which yesterday had looked like a beautiful carpet, 

 so varied in colour were the little crocuses that were 

 everywhere shooting up amongst the short grass, was 



