Our Descent To The Camp Was A Good March In Itself, And We Arrived
There About Five P.M. Hot And Tired, 'but Quite Ready For Our Mountain
Fare.
On our road, we luckily discovered a quantity of young rhubarb,
growing in nature's kitchen-garden, and pouncing on
It, we devoted it
to the celebration of our Sunday dinner.[4] We also saw a number of
minaur, or jungle-fowl, something of the pheasant tribe; but they were
so wild that nothing but slugs would secure them, and they entirely
declined the honour of an invitation to our Sunday entertainment.
JUNE 24. - We were not at all sorry to remember this morning,
as the sun rose, that it was a day of rest, for after our last
few days of work we were fully able to enjoy it. Amused ourselves
exploring all about us, and picking wild flowers in memory of our
camp. The commonest were wild pansy and forget-me-not, and the
rhododendron grew in quantities. In the afternoon we made a muster
of our standing provisions, having only brought four days' supply,
and seeing little chance of getting back for ten. The result was.,
that tea was reported low, potatoes on their last legs, and brandy
in a declining state. Under these melancholy circumstances, we
agreed to stop another day for shooting, and then march over the
snows for Aliabad and Heerpore, to join our main body at the latter
place. A road by Cheta Panee was declared impracticable for coolies,
in consequence of the hardness of the snow; so we gave it up.
JUNE 25. - All over the mountains again this morning before daybreak,
and up to breakfast-time without seeing game. However, one of our
sharp-sighted guides then detected markore, grazing at a long distance
up the mountains; even through the glasses they were mere specks,
and, to our unpractised eyes, very like the tufts and stones around
them; but in all faith that our guides were right, off we started in
pursuit. The first step was to lose all our morning's toil by plunging
for a mile or so down a steep descent. After that being accomplished,
up we went again, up and up an apparently interminable bank of snow, at
an angle of about sixty degrees, and slippery as glass. At the summit,
exhausted and completely out of breath, we did at last arrive, and from
this our friends of the morning were expected to be within shot. Not a
sign of a living creature appeared, however, to enliven the solitude
around us, and we began to think that our guides were a little TOO
clear-sighted this time, when what should suddenly come upon us but
a solitary old markore, slowly and leisurely rounding a rugged point
of rock below. We were all squatted in a bunch upon a space about as
large as a good-sized towel; but, hidden as we thought ourselves,
I could discern that our friend had evidently caught a glimpse of
something which displeased him in his morning cogitations.
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