212 WANDERINGS OF A 



morrow ;" and his words proved true ; for at day-dawn we 

 came on the herd feeding in a hollow above a glacier which 

 sloped gradually down into the valley. Singliag out the two 

 largest, I pressed my trusty Westley Eichards to my shoul- 

 der and fired on the fine old buck ; before he had fallen 

 another bullet pierced the second largest male of the herd, 

 and when the smoke cleared away both were seen rolling 

 down the ice-clad slope. How my heart beat with delight, 

 and Ajez Khan hugged and kissed the rifle ! with what wild 

 excitement we half-slid half-bounded down the glacier after 

 our quarry, which lay like little black specks on the snow far 

 below us ! They had bumped and rolled until brought to a 

 stand-still by a huge boulder on the ice, where we found them 

 just as the sun was setting. In all my Himalayan travels I have 

 never witnessed a scene so wild and grand as that glen ; and 

 never shall I forget the circumstances which have fixed its 

 noble magnificence . on my memory. The largest trophy 

 measured 11| hands at the shoulder, and each of his horns 

 was 48^ inches in length, and 3 feet 2 inches between their 

 tips. His long, flowing black beard, dashed with gray, 

 stretched from the chin down the dewlap to his chest, hang- 

 ing in long straight tresses to his knees. He looked in 

 every respect the very monarch of the glen. The shickarees 

 who crowded to my house in Serinuggur subsequently, to 

 examine the head, alleged that it was without exception the 

 largest that had been seen or killed on the mountains of 

 Cashmere.* 



* Young measured a pair of horns in the possession of the present ruler of 

 Cashmere which weighed 20 lbs. ; the length of each, 3 feet 7 J inches ; between 

 the tips, 3 feet 11 inches ; circumference, 11 4 inches. Their points were 

 blunted and worn. The animal must have been larger than the above. The 

 horns were picked up in a snow-drift on the mountains of Dardu. 



