1839.] Journal of a trip through Kunawur. 927 



similar situations in Europe. There were here many plants familiar 

 to me, as the strawberry, the little pheasant's eye, the mare's tail, and a 

 plant in search of which many of us in our boyish days have 

 wandered through the fields of old England, in order to feed our 

 rabbits, it is known, if I forget not, by the name of "queen of the 

 meadows," or " meadow sweet/' and grows abundantly, as it does here, 

 by the side of ditches and brooks. The currant, wild rose, and dwarf 

 willow were plentiful also, especially the latter, for which the swampy 

 nature of the ground was particularly genial and adapted. Here we at 

 length found the path for which we had so long toiled in vain, and 

 now when found, as often elsewhere happens, it was not worth the 

 trouble it had cost, being but a mere sheep track along the side of a 

 decomposing and crumbling hill, where the footing was as insecure as 

 well could be, and where the prospect below was inevitable death to 

 the unfortunate who should misplace his foot or lose his balance. 

 Time and care however took us safely to Leepee, where I was right 

 glad to find my tent pitched; and as the Himalayan ibex or sikeen 

 was said to be found in the neighbourhood, I determined to make 

 it an excuse for halting a day or two. This measure had moreover 

 become somewhat necessary, for the toil and fatigue of climbing over 

 such broken and rugged paths as we had travelled for the last three or 

 four days, in the heat of the noonday sun, when the thermometer 

 generally indicated a temperature exceeding 95°, had brought on so 

 severe a pain in my right side, that often I found it absolutely neces- 

 sary to lie down for awhile on the ground, until it had somewhat 

 abated. This, added to a severe cold, caught from the necessity we 

 were sometimes under, of wading when profusely heated with walk- 

 ing, nearly knee-deep through several streams, whose waters having 

 only recently left the beds of snow above, caused the thermometer to 

 stand at the cooling temperature of 38°, made it necessary that I 

 should take a rest, and while doing so, I determined to dispatch men 

 into the upper glens in search of the long wished for ibex. 



On arriving at my tent I made immediate inquiries for sportsmen, 

 or shikarrees, and heard to my dismay that the only man in the place 

 who knew how to handle a gun, had gone " away to the mountain's 

 brow," to sow phuppra seed for the autumn crop. Seeing my disap- 

 pointment at this unexpected piece of bad news, a little dirty, half- 

 clad urchin offered to start off to the shikarree and tell him that a 

 f Sahib" had arrived, which news would of itself be sufficient to bring 

 him down. I asked how far he had to go, and when he would be 

 back? to which he replied, " It is eight miles going and coming, but 



