38 
NARRATIVE. 
is difficult at first to find where the watershed is. 
From the top, the descent for five miles was very- 
gradual along the right bank of a stream, which 
soon becomes the Dras river ; it was still in many 
places bridged by enormous masses of snow. We 
halted for breakfast close to the abrupt end of a 
glacier, which fills a large valley on the right. We 
were here joined by a friend, who was shooting ibex 
in a neighbouring valley or " nulla," as sporcsmen 
here call them. After breakfast, we walked on to near 
Matayon, the first hamlet on the Tibet side of the 
pass, about fifteen miles from Baltal, and encamped on 
the left bank of the Dras river. On the pass I 
noticed very little animal life. The Cuckoo was very 
common, on the Kashmir side, as far as birch-trees 
extended, a little beyond the top of the first ascent ; 
on the pass itself, the Himalayan Chough and the 
Yellow-headed wagtail were the only birds I saw. 
Marmots, Ardomys hemachalanus of Hodgson, 
called by the Kashmiris drin," and by the Tibetans 
" pya," were very abundant along the whole march, 
uttering their shrill cry, and disappearing in their 
holes whenever we approached them. The}^ are very 
difficult to shoot, unless one has time to watch in 
concealment, until one of them ventures some 
considerable distance ' away from its hole. One 
specimen I obtained measured twenty-two inches in 
length, including the tail, which was twelve inches.* 
It was loaded with fat under the skin. The flesh is 
said to be tolerably good eating. Marmots were not 
• This specimen is described by Dr. Anderson in the Zoological Society's 
Proceedings, or 1871, page 561. 
