236 WANDERINGS OK A 



killed one outright, but the other, although desperately 

 wounded, was on the point of making his escape, when by 

 good fortune I managed to hit him again on a more fatal 

 spot, when he rolled down the mountain-side, bounding from 

 bank to bank with great violence, now rebounding into the 

 air a huge revolving brown mass of hair, then tumbling and 

 tossing over rocks, and down the evener parts, until brought 

 to a stand-still on the firm bed of snow at the bottom, some 

 700 feet below me. The steepness of the mountains of that 

 •glen surpassed any I had ever mounted. Our grass-shoes 

 even were useless, and we were often obliged to make our way 

 by digging steps across the declivities. The shickaree declared 

 that he had seldom ventured on such dangerous places as were 

 passed on that occasion, and I must say, although gifted with 

 what is called " a good head," I often felt I could not afford 

 to look below me when crossing the fearful chasms. The 

 wild cry of the chough was often heard, and flocks were seen 

 feeding by the sides of the melting snow ; there were also 

 numbers of the brown snow-finch flitting from one clearing 

 to another, emitting their linnet-like chirp as the flock turned 

 and twisted like snow-flakes in a stubble field. On the 

 following day I revisited the glen, and after several fruitless 

 attempts to circumvent a herd of ibexes among the inacces- 

 sible cliffs high up, we descended to the bare slopes, and killed 

 three bears, one of which rolled down many hundred feet, but, 

 strange to say, not a bone was broken in any of them, not 

 even the skin injured. The shickaree killed a fine male ibex. 

 Young had also been fortunate, for on my arrival at the tent 

 I found him stretching the skins of four fine bears. In stalk- 

 ing these animals, especially in narrow gorges, the sportsman 

 must be constantly on the out-look for sudden changes in 

 currents of air ; every gully may vary the direction, and often 



