Though The Wind Blew Cold And Chilly Off The
Snows, We Soon Found That The Midday Sun Still Asserted His Supremacy,
And Our Faces And Hands Soon Bore Witness To The Fierceness Of The
Trial Of Strength Between The Two.
Our camp, although so high up,
was not more than six miles from Poshana, and from thence we drew all
our supplies, such as milk, eggs, and fowls, &c., the coolies' and
shikarees' subsistence being deducted from their pay.
Our own living
was not expensive: fowls, threepence each for large, three-halfpence
small; milk, three-halfpence per quart, and eggs, twelve for the
like amount, or one anna. For the rest, we lived upon chupatties, or
unleavened cakes of flour - very good hot, but "gutta-percha" cold -
potatoes from Lahore, and, in the liquid line, tea and brandy. At night
we slept upon the ground - pretty hard it was while one was awake to
feel it - and not having any lamp, we turned in shortly after dark,
while in the morning we were up and dressed before the nightingales
had cleared their voices. These latter abounded all about us, and
formed a most agreeable addition to our establishment.
JUNE 22. - Left our camp before sunrise, and crossing a large field
of snow over the main torrent, we clambered up the precipitous side
of our opposite mountain. The snow at first felt piercingly cold as
it penetrated our snow-shoes, but before we reached the top, we had
little to complain of in the way of chilliness. Our sharp-sighted
guides soon detected game on the rocks above us, and off we went on
a stalk, over rocks and chasms of snow - now running, now crawling
along, more like serpents than respectable Christians, and all
in a style that would have astonished nobody more than ourselves,
could we have regarded the performance in the cool light of reason,
and not influenced by the excitement of chasing horned cattle of such
rare and curious proportions.
The markore, however, were quite as interested in the sport as we were,
and after an arduous and protracted stalk, they finally gave us the
slip, and we called a halt at the summit of a hill for breakfast and a
rest during the heat of the day. The former we enjoyed as we deserved,
but for the latter I can't say much : occasionally a cold blast from
off the snow would run right through us, while the sun bore down upon
our heads with scorching power, making havoc with whatever part of us
it found exposed to its rays, and blistering our hands and legs. The
guides helped us out by building up a most ricketty-looking shanty
with sticks and pieces of their garments and our own, and under this
apology for shelter, with our feet almost in the snow, we passed the
day, until it was cool enough again to look for game. In the evening
we came suddenly upon a kustura, a sort of half goat, half sheep,
with long teeth like a wolf.
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