■June, 24, 1905.] 
regretted coming to what seemed likely to end in a 
butchery, for the combination of ancient strategy with 
modem- arms seemed a trifle unfair to our quarry. 
The Mehtar was beguiling the time by telling me of 
some wonderful battues at this spot in the time of his ill- 
fated predecessor, when faint confused sounds of shout- 
ing came from high up the opposite mountain, mingled 
with the yelping of dogs. Presently some black dots ap- 
peared moving far away in the snow ; then a man perched 
up on a rock behind us said : "Big markhor coming this 
way," and we saw a big beast come bounding down alone, 
pausing after each spring to see where the danger lay, 
and heading straight for the rock face opposite. The 
men in the butt all seized their rifles and crouched close 
to the wall. I declined the Mehtar's pressing invitation to 
take the shot, so he got ready. The markhor was now 
within two hundred yards of us and I was watching him 
through the glasses. A kingly fellow he looked, with 
his head thrown back, his great black spiral horns stand- 
ing grandly out and his long beard sweeping the snow. 
Suddenly, seeming to scent danger in front, he turned 
half left and up the glen. A few gigantic bounds brought 
him with an avalanche of snow and stones to the bottom 
of the valley, across which he dashed and was lost to 
view. Two or three shots had been fired as soon as it was 
seen he was not going into the rock face, but he was not 
touched, and I was glad to think he might live to add a 
few more inches to his magnificent spread of horns, enjoy 
a few more seasons of courtship, and then die in a more 
befitting manner. 
Of course the grumbles in the butt were loud and not 
less sincere, and everyone blamed everyone else for hav- 
ing moved or shown themselves at the critical moment. 
The big markhor of the herd had escaped, and it now 
became apparent also from the shouts and yelps getting 
fainter and fainter, that the rest of the herd had some- 
how managed to break through the line. 
But stay, here comes something down the opposite 
slope. It is a doe markhor, going as if a pack of demons 
were after her. On she comes and reaches her supposed 
refuge on the rock face. The cause of her haste is soon 
evident, for a long Badakshan hound is close on her 
tracks, not a couple of hundred yards behind and giving 
tongue in short excited yelps. As the hound reaches one 
side of the precipice and begins to creep cautiously along 
a snowy ledge, the doe wandering on and invisible to 
him, has reached the further side and turns round again 
toward the center of the rock. I signal to the Mehtar not 
to shoot, for it is evident that hunter and hunted are 
going to meet nose to nose on a ledge about an inch wide 
and the solution of the problem will be interesting. Only 
a corner of rock now separates them and both reach it 
simultaneously. A chorus of ya allah burst from the spec- 
tators in our gallery, as the doe, without one moment's 
hesitation, -sprang straight out into mid air and went 
down. A gallant bid for life it was and suitably rewarded, 
for, leaning over, we saw her recover her footing in deep 
snow two hundred feet down, dash on to the stream, 
across, and away to safety on the line her lord and mas- 
ter had taken before. The hound could do nothing but 
extricate himself from the precipice, which done, he sat 
down and barked foolishly. 
There was nothing more, and we returned, the Mehtar 
full of apologies at the poor sport he had shown, though, 
as I told him, the leap for life that doe had shown us, 
was a sight I would have gone far to see. 
The beaters came in in groups, some not arriving for 
hours afterw-ard. The tale they told was that the body 
of the herd were first making straight for our rock, but 
something had turned them and they had gone right 
through the line of beaters. Tracks of two snow leopards 
had been seen and that was supposed to be the cause of 
the fiasco. 
Now let us transfer ourselves to one of the higher val- 
leys, nearer the main axis of this mighty belt of mountain 
land, where the mysterious ibex in his haunts of snow 
and ice forms the quarry of humbler votaries. Here we 
are in the midst of romance and legend. 
There is, even to materialistic Westerners something 
almost supernatural about the ibex. When, during the 
fearful winters of high regions, his summer companions, 
markhor and oorial, bear and marmot, either seek lower 
and warmer levels, or hibernate in comfortable under- 
ground dwellings, the ibex remains alone among the 
snows and drifting mists. What enables them to defy 
the terrific elements, and escape the constant avalanches 
that thunder down the mountain sides in the spring time? 
How do they exist? The ordinary mortal will explain it 
by saying that they crowd together under rock shelters 
and subsist on grass roots and juniper sprays while the 
winter is at its height, and that instinct teaches them to 
keep to ridges and arrctes during the avalanche season, 
and that they are protected froin the intense cold by a 
thick undercoat of wonderful soft wool. But every 
Chitrali knows well that ibex are under the special pro- 
tection of the mountain fairies, the chief of whom lives 
among the icy pyramids and high turrets of the great 
mountain Tirish Mir. They know that when the earth- 
quakes pass along these valleys, those specially gifted can 
see hosts of fairies streaming across the sky, riding on 
ibex and long-maned ponies. Men and women are now 
living who have been transported to the gleaming palaces 
of Tirich Mir and seen their inhabitants and the ibex that 
wander freely among them. Does not history also relate 
how, when the country is in urgent danger, fairies are 
seen by many with their ibex squadrons. riding_ to the 
Mehtar's assistance? Does not every Kohistani know 
that it was by their aid alone that the army of the farnous 
Sikh general, Bhup Singh, was surrounded on the Gilgit 
road and every man of them either killed or sold to the 
slave-dealing Mirs and Slighnan and Roshan? 
The slaying of an ibex therefore is no light matter. No 
shikari would venture to start on a hunting trip without 
having first propitiated the protecting powers. Otherwise 
his foot would slip on the edge of some dizzy precipice; 
stones would hurtle through the air, impelled by unseen 
hands; he would fall through into some deep ice well in 
the groaning glacier; or maybe he would wander be- 
wildered like the Ancient Mariner, seeing fearful sights: 
And through the drifts the snowy clifts, 
Did send a dismal sheen: 
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken — 
The ice was all between. 
But whether lying under hills of green ice, or kept in 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
bondage by the fairy folk of Tirich Mir, certain it is that 
he would never again be seen alive. 
So the shikari omits none of the customary ceremonies 
before leaving home. His good woman first bakes him 
an enorinous cake, which is stuffed into the folds of his 
gown above the girdle. He cleans his brass-bound match- 
lock and slings it over his shoulder and hangs round him 
bullet-pouch, powder-horn, knife, and all the miscellan- 
eous paraphernalia of the chase. Then, after warning his 
wife not to allow unpurified man or woman to cross his 
threshold, he starts off with his leash of hounds. 
At the mouth of the selected valley, he flings four 
pieces of his loaf north, south, east and west, invoking 
the special fairy of the place. "Oh guardian of this golden 
glen, this slave has approached thy abode. Look on him 
with kindness. I have come under thy silken sleeve and 
the hem of thy skirts. Of thy flocks grant me but 
one beast. Let him be such as has no wool, has 
no milk, and is unable to keep up with the herd, that 
is thin, weak, lame, and even blind. Give keenness to 
my eyes and power to my limbs, so that I may slay one 
animal. Safeguard me from all dangers." 
For the hunter of the Hindoo Koosh the year is divided 
into numerous seasons, known under different names. 
There is the rutting season, when the sexes mingle in the 
early winter; the dead of winter, when all the ibex, 
grounds are fathoms deep in snow ; the avalanche season 
when the roar of cataracts of snow is almost continuous 
under the morning and mid-day sun ; the season when the 
lower, slopes with a southern aspect form brown streaks 
in a white ocean of mountains ; the season when the fresh 
green grass begins to appear, and slowly spreads up the 
mountain to the lowest limits of eternal snow; the sum- 
mer, W'hen all the mountain sides where earth can lie are 
carpeted with grass and flowers, and game animals have 
their widest range to wander over ; and lastly, the season 
when the higher slopes take autumnal tints of red and 
3'ellow, and ibex are found comparatively low down tak- 
ing advantage of the last of the summer grazing. This 
is the time when the old bucks are in pride of grease, and 
it is consequently perhaps the favorite shooting time 
among shikaris, though of course their work is easiest 
of all in the spring, when the ibex, ravenous after their 
short winter commons, come low down for the first blades 
of fresh green grass and wormwrood. 
Ibex having been seen, there are twO' methods of pro- 
ceeding, according to the excellence of the hunter's 
hounds. If they are of the best breed, stanch and well 
trained, he can, as the saying is, slip them at the bottom 
of the nullah and then go and breakfast at leisure, certain 
that the early morning's downward flowing air will have 
brought news of the ibex to the hounds, and that by the 
time he has finished, he will find one or two of the herd 
rounded up into some precipice, to which he will be at- 
tracted by his hounds' baying. This is the ideal. 
The real is more often something like this. The hun- 
ter, after picking up his ibex, takes his hounds well 
above them and sights them before slipping. A long 
chase follows, the hounds hunting their game from pre- 
cipice to precipice, the shikari keeping them in sight or 
hearing as best he may. A long day's hunt in deep snow 
and frequently the most appallingly dangerous ground is 
the usual thing, the end of which may be a shot or may 
not. Much of course depends on the suitability of the 
valley for this kind of hunting. The best nullahs which 
have been pointed out to me all have the same character- 
istics ; the greater part of the ground is comparatively 
easy, but somewhere in the middle is a great scarp of 
naked rock, from which it would be impossible for the 
hounds to move a beast which has once taken refuge 
there. 
Imagine the scene at such a moment ; the ibex standing 
on a ledge or niche in some sheer cliffs of rock, turning 
this way and that; the exhausted hounds lying at the 
bottom with lolling tongues, baying as they lie and tak- 
ing snatches at the snow. Enter the shikari from above 
at a dizzy height, peering over the edge. The range is 
too far for his rude weapon. He examines the ground 
with the eye of a cragsman born and bred, to whom gid- 
diness and' nerves are unknown. His feet, wrapped round 
with strips of untanned hide, will stand firm on rock 
which would appear as impracticable for one in nailed 
boots as the dancing of a hornpipe on the dome of St. 
Paul's. But the risks of rocks glazed by ice, "stone shoots, 
all the hundred and one perils that beset one who would 
climb on rock, all these he knows and appreciates. Alone 
and encumbered with his hunting-gear, he lets himself 
down and trusts himself step by step with infinite care 
on ground where none but the most adventurous Alpine 
climbers, roped and in company, would venture. 
The shot he takes lying down with the muzzle of his 
weapon resting on or against a stone. Lucky he deems 
himself if the beast goes head over heels, whizzing 
down to the anxious hounds, for his agate-cored balls 
leave as much to- be desired in point of efficiency as 
his old musket in point of accuracy. Perhaps the 
finish only comes at the end of a wearisome chase after 
a wounded beast, the termination of which may be suc- 
cess or failure. 
With the shikari as with the Sheikh Sadis'^^dervish, 
"His inn is wherever darkness may find him"; but if 
the rigors of a night under the stars are mitigated by 
the skin of a freshly-killed ibex for a covering and his 
bread helped down with morsels of roasted .liver, he is 
as happy as a king. 
In this sport very much depends on the hounds, and 
a good pair are very highly prized. Like the ponies of 
these highlands, the best breeds come from Badakshan 
and look like a cross between a Borzoi and collie. Be- 
fore the hunting season comes on, shikaris harden and 
condition their hounds by pitching them into some icy 
torrent several times a day — a course which I was once 
recommended to follow with a favorite spaniel some- 
what inclined to embonpoint. 
The successful shikari, on his way home, sings the 
quaint hunting song called the ghoru. As he nears his 
village, men and boys run out to relieve him_ of his 
kit and load of meat and horns — the latter destined to 
grace the nearest saint's shrine. The whole hamlet 
joins in the chorus, those not helping with the loads 
sitting down on the roofs of their houses and with 
little fingers in their ears (like a huntsman) rendering 
the song at the highest pitch of their voices. 
497 
Oh valley opened for me, he ho, 
Blood-stained are my hands, he ho. 
Deer-like are thine eyes, he ho, ! 
Seeing after death, he ho. 
Rise I in the night, he ho, 
Crouching I aw»it thee, he ho. 
Thy feet they leave a trail, he ho; 
Thy horns they graze the sky, he ho. 
Food from the unseen, be Iio, 
Thou art given by God, he ho. 
From ridge to ridge I spy thee, he ho; 
I would know thee again and again, he ho. 
I see thy various shapes, he ho; 
I track thee from ledge to ledge, he ho. 
In the midst of the herd I strike, he ho ; 
Face to face I slay thee, he ho. 
Thou the ibex of my kitchen, he ho. 
Thou the guest of this evening, he ho. 
Thou the high and unattainable, he ho, 
Now descend through my smoke-hole, he ho. 
The meat is actually taken into the shikari's house 
through the hole in the roof which serves for a chimney, 
and there received by the members of his family, he 
himself entering in by the door. 
The usual quarry in the Hindoo Koosh is, as has 
been said, markhor and ibex, but when the snow is 
deep and a herd of oorial has been marked down in a 
suitable place, that is to say, low down on flattish 
ground, a whole village will turn out ond mob the 
poor beasts to death with their dogs, and there is 'a 
recorded instance at Gilgit when a big herd were so 
wiped out. As a rule, oorial, who trust for safety 
more to speed and activity than getting into inacces- 
sible places, say good-bye to hounds and hunters. My 
old shikari used to tell o^ a herd of these animals that 
escaped him by swimming the Indus, an extraordinary 
feat.^ "But ibex, too," he used plaintively to add, "used 
to give my hounds a lot of trouble." 
Really big battues, as a matter of fact, are now, and 
always have been extremely rare, though old sports- 
men of the Himalayas love talking about them. I 
once asked an old gray-beard, after hearing one 
of the gory tales, how. it was that so many ani- 
mals still remained. "Sahib, ' he said, "the more 
the seed the heavier the crop, is it not? And the more 
blood spilt on the ground this year, the larger the herds 
of ibex next." And this is the cotftmon belief, es- 
pecially among the Kafirs. R. L. Kennion. 
Prof. Agassis was Convinced. 
In the first speech Senator Frye made after being 
elected to the Senate he made mention of the very large 
brook trout caught in the Rangeley lakes, weighing from 
I to 7 or 8 pounds, and when on his way to his hotel Pro- 
fessor Agassiz overtook him and congratulated, him on 
his speech, saying it was a very creditable effort, but ad- 
vised him that whenever hereafter.he mentioned the brook 
trout, the speckled trout, or the squaretailed trout, not to 
have them quite so large, as there never was a brook trout 
that weighed over 3 pounds. The Senator asked him if 
he was open to conviction, and he said if he saw one 
weighing more he would believe it, not otherwise. When 
Congress adjourned the Senator went home to Lewiston 
and, with a friend, went to his camp in the Rangeleys, 
and while there one day they each caught a trout weigh- 
ing about 7 pounds, which they sent on to Professor 
Agassiz. In a few days the Senator received a few lines 
from the professor, and this is what he wrote: "The 
theory of a lifetime kicked to death by a stubborn fact." 
— Boston Herald. 
A Way Through. 
In County Sligo there is a small lake renowned for its 
fabulous depth. A professor happened to be in that part 
of Ireland last summer, and started out one day for a 
ramble among the mountains, accompanied by a native 
guide. As they climbed, Pat asked him if he would like 
to see this lake, "for it's no bottom at all, sorr." "But 
how do you know that, Pat?" asked the professor. "Well, 
sorr, I'll tell ye ; me own cousin was showin' the pond to 
a gentleman one day, sorr, and he looked incredulous like, 
just as you do, and me cousin couldn't stand it for him to 
doubt his worrd, sorr, and so he said, 'Begorra, I'll prove 
the truth'of me words,' and off with his clothes and in he 
jumped." The professor's face wore an amused and 
quizzical expression. "Yes, sorr, in he jumped, and didn't 
come up again, at all, at all." "But," said the professor, 
'T don't see that your cousin proved his point by reck- 
lessly drowning himself." "Sure, sorr, it wasn't drowned 
at all he was ; the next day comes a cable from him in 
Australia, askin' to send on his clothes."- — Argonaut. 
A Talc of the Deep Lock. 
New Brunswick, June 12. — The following story is 
vouched for by A. H. Snyder, a member of the Official 
Board. of the First Methodist Episcopal Church here, who 
is also lock tender at the deep lock on the Raritan Canal : 
Owen Swain, of Johnson & Johnson's plaster room, lost 
a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles in the deep lock a few 
days ago. On Saturday night, while Mr. Snyder had the 
water drawn from the lock, he and Mr. Swain looked for 
the spectacles. Mr. Snyder reached down as Mr. Swain 
pointed out the exact spot where the spectacles had been 
lost. His first reach brought up a lively catfish. Perched 
on the fish's nose was the pair of spectacles. — New York 
Times. 
iff S 
^ Take inventory of the good things in this issue 
of Forest and Stream. Recall what a fund was jj 
given last week. Count on what is to come next jj 
week. Was there ever in all the world a more 6 
abundant weekly store of sportsmen's reading? ^ 
