NATURALIST IN INDIA. 143 



encrusted rocks. The streams and wells in the neighbour- 

 hood being more or less tainted with salt, we found great 

 difficulty in procuring a sufficiency of fresh water for our 

 wants. One morning, early, while clambering across a steep 

 ridge, I suddenly came on a Sikh sitting under a ledge of 

 rock, where he had passed the night ; he was mimis his 

 nose and right hand, which he said were cut off during 

 the reign of Eunjeet Singh, as a punishment for having 

 murdered his brother. "When told that now-a-days his life 

 would be forfeited for such a crime, he, with a sly shrug 

 of his shoulder and twinkle of his little black eye, turned and 

 moved down the ravine, muttering something about the 

 difficulties attendant on such proceedings under the British 

 rule, and no doubt bent on salt-stealing, for which he had 

 come, whilst I pushed up the slope, and, gaining the top of 

 the spur, had a magnificent view of the Indus on one side 

 and the Hydaspes on the other flank, tracing their wind- 

 ings for many a mile, in spite of the heavy atmosphere 

 which hung over the plains below. The heat at mid-day, 

 especially when reflected from the sides of the red ravines, 

 was very powerful. Of wild sheep we saw many, but the 

 cover was scanty, and the animals always on the alert ; if a 

 herd was feeding in a ravine, an old ram was sure to be on the 

 outlook on some near eminence, and as soon as he apprehended 

 danger, would send forth a loud whistle, when the whole set 

 off at fuU speed. There are few ruminants in which the 

 senses of sight and smell are more highly developed ; natives 

 allege that their smell is feeble or wanting, but I doubt if this 

 animal is behind any of its compeers in that respect. By 

 European sportsmen it is frequently called the " deer sheep," 

 and from the circumstance that although its eye, hair, gait, 

 and bleat are decidedly ovine, it has the infra-orbital apertures 



