CAMPING IN CHAMBA. 501 



Returning after my four days' expedition, with 3 thar, 2 bears, and 2 

 gooral, we moved camp to Hul, pitching on the southern slope of the vale, on 

 the level dancing-green in front of a picturesque old temple of Kali, which was 

 much in need of repair. The temple was built chiefly of pine- wood, and had 

 some quaint carvings, as of a leopard and a snake, on the front over the 

 architrave, and a pair of 11-inch thar horns nailed over the door of the inner 

 shrine. 



When the temple mela (fair) takes place annually, there are wrestling 

 matches and dances held on the little green, so by request we did not dig our 

 usual trenches along the tent walls, but only put a little embankment of 

 earth round, which failed utterly to keep out the flood water one very stormy 

 night. After getting the camp into order, 1 went up the steep hill over the 

 camp, and saw a good gooral lying down on a little ledge, half in a small cave 

 on the face of a tremendous precipice. My first shot missed, as so often 

 happens if one fires at a recumbent animal ; the gooral sprang up, stood for 

 a fatal moment ; and was picked up quarter of a mile below, whither he had 

 fallen in three bounds and a short roll ! Just below where he was shot, I saw 

 on the face of the cliff, a nest of Gypsfulvus, the Tawny Yulture. There was a 

 full-grown young bird crouching in the nest. As we were resting on the 

 hillside, we heard some shots in the valley below. Descending, we learnt 

 that they were being fired for the benefit of a dying man in the village. 

 *' Many a holy text around she strews, that teach the rustic moralist to die." 

 But in this case the object was to cure the sick man ; and the means was 

 by firing blank cartridge, wadded with paper, on which texts had been in- 

 scribed. It was no doubt as efficacious as praying by water-power; or the 

 hakim's dodge of making the patient drink the water in which the prescription 

 has been washed off. Healing by faith is not limited to people who believe 

 in patent medicaments ! 8 ° ® Again I deserted my sorrowing 

 family for four days, taking the small camp a distance of 16 miles or so, 

 up the Hul valley, and over three passes, 9,100, 8,700, and 9,700 feet high, via 

 Banjah, to Bhangori, a village in a glen on the south of the Chanju valley, 

 with a splendid view northwards towards Chanju and the great snowy peaks 

 beyond. Hul is just 6,000 feet at the river bed below the lambardar's house, 

 so this was a good long walk. I started at 5-50 a.m., and taking it easy, got in 

 at 3 in the afternoon. We camped near the panchakki, or water-mill, about a 

 mile or so from the village, if three huts can be so designated. On the way 

 down the last ridge, a flying squirrel, or Een, as the hillmen call it, 

 glided past me, and went some sixty yards further down-hill, to the 

 foot of a withered old pine, up which it scrambled rapidly to near the 

 top, when it disappeared into a hole in the dead-wood. I got to about 

 40 yards of it, and sent a man to tap the trunk. The squirrel put its 

 head out ; the little Mannlicher bullet caught it on the cheek bone ; and 

 down it came. It was the larger flying squirrel, Pteromys inornatus. 



