NATURALIST IN INDIA. 281 



cepting on the hips, which are bluish, and the lower parts 

 white. 



The Tibet ravine-deer of Europeans (Procapra picticavda) is 

 met with on craggy mountain-sides, and, like the goral and 

 chamois, delights to sport among cliffs and precipices. The 

 ruddy or Brahminy goose, and its broods, are plentiful on this 

 lake and around its stony sides. The flesh of this bird, 

 although generally considered unpalatable in India, is by no 

 means so when stewed with moimtain mutton and alpine hare 

 in the regular " hotch-potch" style. I recommend every 

 Himalayan traveller to adopt this plan with game in general, 

 and provide- himself with a good-sized stew-pot ; for it is 

 wonderful how few incompatibles enter into the hunter's fare 

 when seasoned with a good appetite. You may mix fish, 

 partridges, hares, ducks, and venison, and, if well served up, 

 nothing can be more savoury. Near the little green plot at 

 Poogah on which travellers generally encamp is one of the 

 sulphur and borax mines. Here we found several men and 

 boys employed melting the minerals, the former in shallow 

 basins. The hollow in the rock was only a few feet from the 

 surface, and lined with beautiful octohedral crystals of sul- 

 phur, more or less mixed with white powder or crystallised 

 borax. 



After a tedious march of upwards of twelve miles over a 

 low range of hills, and across a dreary stony plain, we passed 

 a small lake, and soon afterwards a large sheet of water was 

 seen extending southwards for upwards of ten miles — its 

 greatest breadth might be about two. Gerard, the first 

 English traveller who visited the lake, calls it Chuinoninil, 

 and makes its elevation 15,000 feet above the level of the sea. 

 My own impressions are that this is under the mark, although 

 Halkett's mountain barometer gave nearly the same altitude. 



