MARKHOR AND SHARPU SHOOTING 167 



apricots and delicious mulberries were ripe in the 

 villages through which we passed. It was a great 

 pleasure after coming down from the Basha Nullah 

 to discard our fur sleeping-bags at night and to 

 tramp coatless in the daytime. Yet the work was 

 long and tedious, up and down fatiguing ascents and 

 descents through the most barren sort of country, 

 except where the villages afforded rest, shade, and 

 delicious fruit and water for parched mouths. Sel- 

 dom more than one stage a day was accomplished, 

 which meant but from eight to twelve miles, and 

 glad enough we were to come to the end of them. 



At Rondu we had tiffin under a wide-spreading 

 chenar tree in the centre of the village, curiously 

 watched as usual by the women and children of the 

 town from their housetops, and then proceeded to 

 a beautiful camp-ground in a little village called 

 Harpu, where we were entertained, as often, by 

 native music and dancing. We passed Tulu, Hilbu, 

 and Subsar, and on the 26th of June, at a place 

 called Bulchu, feeling ill, I decided to take a day 

 of rest. Perry I asked to continue to his markhor 

 nullah, for we were to shoot separately and I did 

 not know how long my indisposition, due to indi- 

 gestion brought on by fatigue, might delay him. 



The 28th was a long day of descent from the high 

 land on which we had been, almost to the Indus, 



