Stalking the Indian Gooral. 
Far in the northeastern corner of the Punjab 
es the native State of Sirmoor, ruled by a 
jative ruler who keeps up his own little stand- 
g army and administers his little realm under 
ne ever-watchful eye of the Indian Government, 
is a hilly little dominion and teems with both 
rge and small game of many kinds, among the 
irmer being found tiger, panther, sambur, black 
ick and gooral, while under the latter heading 
acock jungle fowl, black and gray partridge, 
■ ickor, quail and wildfowl. The angler will 
so find mahseer, freshwater shark, murral, 
ihu and many kinds of smaller fish, including 
te ubiquitous chilwa. 
K. K., a brother officer and myself, once spent 
; very pleasant ten days at Christmas, taking 
c r wives up into the hills which divide the 
linjab from Sirmoor. We were out for grooval 
;d panther. The grooval or wild goat is found 
t:reabouts in considerable numbers. In color 
i is a reddish gray, pointed with black, stand- 
i r some thirty odd inches at the shoulder and 
ith short black back-curving horns ringed and 
5 rated at the base. In the cold weather they 
' ve good skins, but the flesh is rather strong. 
\fter a march of some forty miles from 
laballa we duly arrived at a place shown on 
:: Indian survey map as Mow, but consisting 
■ n only af one low mud hut. This was in¬ 
cited by a solitary native who informed us 
t the village had been abandoned four years 
) ore, owing to an outbreak of cholera, and 
i t the rain had washed away all the old houses, 
iuated as his hut was, on a steep slope, it was 
>y surprising that it had not followed the 
) ers. At the foot of the slope flowed a small 
jam, on the opposite bank of which we camp- 
‘‘ during our stay. We had fresh fish daily 
uch were caught as follows: The syces nar¬ 
ked the shallow stream by building a rough 
tne and dam across, having an outflow about 
.oot wide, with a drop from the dam into the 
rin stream of about a foot also. Beneath this 
11” they placed a circular wicker basket used 
i. packing. They then withdrew and beat from 
live down stream, with sticks or branches, and 
1 frightened fish v bolting down stream, went 
| r the fall into the basket. This was filled 
ra few minutes each day and then the fish 
'" e sorted and the chilwas only kept for eat- 
y Of course all the fish were very small, but 
iy were delicious eating and we had some 
try day of our stay. 
’he weather was cold and bright and the 
irning air on the hilltops delightfully refresh¬ 
er K. and his wife, who was a very keen 
ft, generally went off in one direction, while 
ent in another, to meet at lunch time on some 
'1 defined hilltop in the neighborhood, my wife 
gaining in camp or fishing the deeper pools 
khe stream for mahseer. Occasionally K. and 
yould go out and leave the women folk at 
ne to fish or otherwise amuse themselves. 
Ong the whole trip we only bagged three 
tral, two falling to K. and one to myself. 
The two obtained by K. were both shot in 
a high beat we called the Blue Rocks, partly 
because of an outcrop of blue stone at the hill¬ 
top, and partly on account of the bluerock 
pigeons which roosted up there at night. We 
had tossed for places and were going to drive 
a herd of twenty-four which we had located 
past these rocks with a gun on either side. K. 
won the easy climb and the best place and I 
had to puff to the top and perch myself on a 
huge boulder standing out from the cliff in 
order to see down the watercourse up which we 
hoped the game would be driven. 
I could see K. and he me as the drive began, 
and though we only had a shikari and four 
beaters, they knew the game thoroughly and 
drove the herd straight up between us. I now 
found that owing to a turn in the watercourse 
I was too far off to shoot with any chance of 
success, so I amused myself by watching the 
bullets from K.’s .303 carbine splash on the rocks 
among the goats as he opened magazine fire on 
them. The herd simply flew up the ravine. K. 
fired some dozen shots and rolled two nice bucks 
over. Watching through the glasses I was 
amazed at the easy way in which these little 
goats raced up the seemingly impassable bluffs 
and precipices. One turned toward me on find¬ 
ing himself unable to negotiate a more than 
usually bad place. I fired but missed. He was 
a good hundred and sixty yards from me and 
never still for a second. The bullet struck the 
cliff close to him and he deliberately sprang 
straight out, apparently into space. He landed, 
I should be sorry to say how far below, on a 
tiny pinnacle of rock with barely room on it 
for his four small feet. From there he again 
made up the hill and disappeared. 
K. was overjoyed at the end of the beat when 
we foregathered at the bottom of the hill. Both 
his bucks had nice heads and the horns of neither 
had been injured, though both had fallen a con¬ 
siderable distance down the cliff when hit. 
The beat was not far from our tents and we 
then returned to breakfast. After breakfast we 
again went out, as the shikari said he knew of 
a good place on the eastern side of the valley 
in which we were camped. 
It was some distance and we halted on the 
way on the top of a low hill. Here, scanning 
the ground about us with my telescope, I thought 
I saw a gooral lying down under a tree about 
a mile away. So I said to K.: “If we see a 
gooral before we get to the shikari’s place, will you 
gi.ve me the shot, as you’ve got two this morning?” 
“Yes,” he answered. 
“All right,” said I, “then I’ll start now, as I 
can see him.” 
It was arranged that K. and the shikari should 
remain where we were till I fired, and taking 
my .500 express from the latter I started to¬ 
ward the foot of the hill upon the top of which 
I had seen the goat. There was a ridge of 
brushwood forming a small coppice which ex¬ 
tended as far as I could judge at that distance 
from the foot of the hill to about eighty or a 
hundred yards from the gooral. 
1 here was also a light breeze, but it was so 
variable that I thought the cover of more ad¬ 
vantage and resolved to chance the wind. In 
due time I came to the last point from which 
I should see the gooral until (should he still 
be there) I gained the top of the hill and the 
end of the cover. So I took a good look through 
the telescope and noted my bearings carefully. 
Ihe glass showed me the buck still lying in the 
same position under a solitary tree, and two 
does which had joined him, distinguished by 
their lighter color. 
Arriving at the strip of cover I found the hill 
pretty steep and the going so bad that I had to 
make a detour and leave the whole cover on my 
right and between me and the goats. Then 
came a steeper climb toward the top and at last 
I came to where I could see the top of the soli¬ 
tary tree which was an acacia under which I 
hoped were still the gooral. All cover ended 
here and the ground was hard red rock with 
paths worn by the gooral in their wanderings 
over the hills and undulating slightly toward the 
tree. 
Gradually I crawled forward, flat on my face, 
half carrying, half pushing the rifle. Then look¬ 
ing carefully up I found I could see nearly to 
the base of the tree, so I removed my topee and 
slowly raised my head. 
Yes, he was still there, but a difficult shot, as 
he was stern on; so I lowered my head again 
and made a flank stalk for a bit before looking 
again. -The sun on my head was pretty hot and 
I was streaming with perspiration. Moreover, 
I thought he must hear my stertorious breath¬ 
ing. Stealthily stealing another glance I found 
he was broadside on, and though about a hun¬ 
dred and twenty yards away, quite a good target. 
I resolved to shoot, stimulated by a suspicion 
of breeze from behind me. 
The goat made no movement as I cautiously 
raised myself and brought the rifle to my shoul¬ 
der. I took a careful sight just behind the shoul¬ 
der and pressed the trigger. The smoke hung in 
front and as I could not see what had happened 
I rose, ran quickly forward and gained the tree. 
I could see no sign of the goats. Just beyond 
the tree, however, the ground dropped sheer for 
a hundred feet or more, the edge of the precipice 
screened by a fringe of scrubby bushes. Peering 
carefully over I saw the buck caught up in some 
bushes growing almost at the bottom of the 
drop, apparently dead. 
I waved to the shikari who I could see half 
way between K. and myself and went back for 
my topee. Then I lit a pipe, returned to the 
hilltop and cast about for a way to get down 
to the goat, which had, so K. told me afterward, 
jumped high in the air to the shot and disap¬ 
peared from view. 
The line of the cliffs extended for about half 
a mile each side of the tree and the slope was 
absolutely sheer, though I have no doubt that 
the gooral could have safely descended it had 
he been all right. I saw no sign of either of 
the others. 
The shikari and I descended about half a mile 
