MARKHOR AND SHARPU SHOOTING 181 



of a flickering candle ; and as it was there that the 

 night was spent, it bears description. The walls were 

 of rough stones, about five feet high, so that one 

 could not stand upright. The roof was of logs and 

 thatch, through which in places the rain dripped 

 merrily. There was no window, chimney, or even a 

 hole through which the smoke could escape, except 

 the door, which was about three feet high. Conse- 

 quently, after suffocating for an hour by a fire in 

 order to attempt getting dry, a manifest impossi- 

 bility, I had to order the fire removed, and the smoke 

 then slightly abated. The floor was of earth, hay, 

 and manure. I finished dinner, which the faithful 

 Thomas, never too tired to cook, had prepared in 

 an adjoining shed, and having waited till my candle 

 had flickered its last, fell asleep to the soothing pat- 

 ter and splash of the rain without and within. 



The next day we reached Astore, a fairly large 

 town, containing a fort high up on a bluff overlook- 

 ing the Astore River, thickly grown with tall, slen- 

 der poplar trees. Here for the first time in two 

 months I slept in a comfortable dak bungalow and 

 very glad I was to have an opportunity to dry out 

 my kit, which with the rains of the previous days 

 had become thoroughly soaked. 



I had an amusing call on the tehsildar in this 

 place, the tehsil being a division of the state and the 



