NATURALIST IN INDIA. 233 



Scinde in the middle of a vast forest-tract, and when my 

 servants and shickaree were employed in stretching bear-skias, 

 I took a rifle and entered the forest in quest of musk-deer. 

 After penetrating the wilderness for some distance, it suddenly 

 occurred to me that I had forgot the pocket-compass, and must 

 now trust to chance in finding my way out. After hours spent 

 in vain attempts to discover the river, night came on, and there 

 seemed nothing for it but to wait patiently until morning. 

 The eternal stniness, not even the murmur of the pine-tops 

 broke the solitude ; in vain I listened for the noise of the 

 river and longed for morning ; when by the first dawn of day 

 I was off on my anxious journey — now rushing down slopes 

 and making my way down hollows, expecting to strike the 

 river at every turn ; but aU was ia vain. Horrible feelings of 

 going directly away from the river haunted me, and the crav- 

 ings of hunger began to be urgent. At length, descending a 

 densely-wooded slope of deodar, and gaining a valley and 

 stream, which after following for upwards of an hour, I came 

 suddenly on the Scinde, and discovered that I had struck the 

 river five miles below my tent. • When I reached my com- 

 panions I was perfectly worn out from the exertion, fatigue, 

 and anxiety ; for, except a crust of bread and a few pieces of 

 the flesh of a musk-deer I kUled in the early morn, no food 

 had passed my lips for upwards of thirty-two hours. 



The ibex {Gapra himalayana) frequents many of the 

 lofty ranges of the western chains, and is known to the 

 natives by the names " skeen" and "kail," which they apply 

 indiscriminately in the districts of Aserung, Spiti, Kenowaur, 

 the Northern Cashmere mountaias, Ladakh, Chinese Tartary, 

 and the Altai. It is not clear that the European ibex is a 

 distinct species. There appears to be a variety in Ladakh 

 (and specimens of the Siberian ibex I have examined possess 



