VAMPING IN CHAMBA, 499 



to drive them towards me. They were in some brushwood above a small 

 precipice. When the man got above and near them, they suddenly darted 

 down the rocks, and the young one made across the open and up the valley. 

 But the mother, as quick as thought, flung herself into a narrow cleft in the 

 rock, and hid there, with just the tip of her nose showing, while the man 

 hunted about everywhere for her. Ee came back at last and said he could 

 not find her ; yet all the time she had been within a few feet of him, tucked 

 away in the cranny. Another day I saw a wounded gooral get far in under 

 a rock in the same way ; it had bolted down hill, dashed past a large boulder, 

 and disappeared. The men sought it for some time before one of them 

 peeped under the rock and dragged it out. ° * ° 



There were no thar round G-undera, but a few were said to be at the head 

 of the valley above Mundola, about 8 miles distant. Taking a small tent, a 

 camp bed, and a tiffin basket, I set off for a short expedition to try for a thar. 

 The first-half of the way was a heavy pull up-hill. I saw several gooral, one 

 of which I shot ; and when nearing the camping-ground I had the misfortune 

 to wound and lose a serow. It saw my shikari, and was making off when I 

 fired a long shot at it. It looked a queer lolloping sort of creature, with 

 large ears and sloping hind-quarters. We found much blood, mixed with 

 froth, sign of a fatal wound generally ; but it got away in some bad preci- 

 pices, and we never saw it more. We camped on the edge of an old sheep- 

 fold, at about 8,000 feet. The glen had some snow in the higher parts, as 

 well as in the river bed, and a strong torrent rushed along, for the most 

 part under the snow. The hides were steep and rugged, with heavy pine 

 forest covering the lower slopes, and bare, rugged, precipitous rocks pro- 

 jecting amid tha trees — just the sort of ground for thar, for they frequent the 

 most dangerous cliffs and the densest thickets. There were several snow 

 bridges to be crossed, and a detour had to be made, to get above a waterfall 

 that had cut its course between vertical walls of rock. Halting when the upper 

 parts of the valley came into view, my telescope showed me a shaggy old thar 

 (or Kurt, in Pahari speech) amid some bushes about half a mile away ; and 

 on the slopes above him, a large snow bear was feeding. The climb up the 

 snow bed took us till 9 o'clock and then it was too late to do anything, for the 

 bear and the thar had both disappeared and would not turn up till the after- 

 noon, if then. We went on to about 10,300 feet, and breakfasted near two lovely 

 cascades that fell over a precipice and disappeared behind the bed of snow in 

 the ravine. I saw several koklass and monaul ; one monaul hen was sitting 

 beside what was evidently her nest, in a cranny under a juniper bush on the 

 face of a precipice, safe from any featherless biped. While we were walking 

 up the glacier, Bhikusaw a thar up a side ravine to the right, but the thar had 

 previously seen him, and was over the hills and away before Bhiku had quite 

 grasped the situation. If he had reconnoitred the ravine before openly 

 crossing the mouth of it, we should have got that thar then, instead of two 

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