NATUKALIST IN INDIA. 289 



procurable. On the above occasion it came hard on us to be 

 obliged to dine on milk and cakes, especially as several ruddy- 

 geese and hares were in our larder. ■ Shortly after leaving 

 Tooskee we overtook the party of officers we had met on our 

 way to the Chimouraree Lake. They seemed to be taking it 

 easy, and enjoying their English luxuries in the shape of pig's 

 faces, port, and beer — delicacies to which we had long been 

 strangers. It was, however, somewhat mortifying to us, who had 

 purposely come in the lightest marching order, to find, in spite 

 of all our plans to secure easy access to the game, that one of 

 these gentlemen on the previous day had scarcely walked off 

 the beaten path when he killed two fine specimens of Ovis 

 ammon, whilst with all our trouble and preparation it had 

 not been our fortune to see even one ; but " the race is not 

 always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong;" at the 

 same time there can be no doubt that to cultivate an intimate 

 acquaintance with the denizens of these rugged mountains, 

 one must be content with a smaU commissariat I have done 

 many a hard day's work on porridge and milk, but it is not 

 wholesome to use every sort of hill-flour for that purpose, 

 especially the coarse grain of the Wurdwun and other valleys 

 northward of Cashmere. When crossing the Tang-Lang Pass 

 we came on a colony of white marmot? (Ardomys tihetanus). 

 This sort is distinguished at once from the red species by its 

 lighter colour, being a yellowish white, and also its call, which 

 more resembles a whistle than a scream. One side of a spur 

 was riddled by their burrows. The white seems to take the 

 place of the red marmot on the more barren and high ranges 

 above 10,000 and 12,000 feet. 



We arrived again at Ghia on the 1st of August during a 

 heavy snow-storm, which delayed the baggage for several 

 hours, and obliged us to beg for shelter from the natives, who 



u 



