146 SPORT AND TRAVEL 



narrow necks into practically three distinct sections ; 

 and as one of these sections offered ample shooting 

 ground for one or even two men, it seemed absurd 

 that one gun could claim the whole valley. Accord- 

 ingly, after some courteous correspondence with the 

 other man, we sent a coolie runner to the nearest 

 telegraph office, some forty miles distant, with a mes- 

 sage to the secretary of the Game Association in 

 Srinagar, requesting him to decide the question, and 

 we meanwhile moved camp to the upper section of 

 the valley, some eight or ten miles away from the 

 other sportsman's camp, fully determined to con- 

 sider it our own, believing the right to be on our side. 

 We ourselves then split camp, each to take a side of 

 the upper section, as we had resolved to shoot sep- 

 arately. 



This third section was a beautiful spot. On the 

 right were broad, steep hillsides, covered with low 

 furze-bushes which afforded the ibex their feeding- 

 grounds ; and these slopes rose steeply to the crags 

 and snow above, being cleft in two places by small 

 nullahs with rocky bottoms and small streams. On 

 the other side towered vast mountains, whose sides 

 seemed almost too steep and too snowy to offer good 

 feeding-grounds, though we had marked down sev- 

 eral big herds there. But the real magnificence of 

 the valley lay in the scene at its head, where a huge 



