With A View To Accomplish This, We Had To Pass Across Some Very Difficult Ground, And At Last Came To A Smooth Face Of Rock, With Nothing Whatever About It To Hold On By, And, Moreover, An Overhanging Ledge, Which Fairly Seemed To Bar All Further Progress.

The coolie, however, whose every toe was as useful to him as a finger, managed to scramble up; and

Not to be outdone, I also attained some height, when, holding on fly-fashion, and clinging to the rock with my fingers and grass shoes, suddenly the pole which partly supported me slipped away, and my whole attention had to be directed to again reaching the ground in as soft and comfortable a manner as possible. In this I succeeded beyond my expectations, and, a second attempt being more successful, finally reached the top. On attaining our hardly-earned post of vantage, however, there was no sign of our friends, but, suddenly, on the mountain below us a herd of about five-and-twenty more appeared to our delighted view. They were standing gazing up at us in astonishment, and for some moments we remained fixed and motionless, hoping to be taken for the stones we were habited in imitation of. Then, crouching down and crawling along as if on velvet, down we went again, and after another long and trying stalk, over broken ground formed apparently of small slates placed edgeways, and crumbling rocks, whose slightest fall would have been destruction to our plans, we attained a rock about two hundred yards from the herd, and paused for breath once more. They were lying about sunning themselves, with an outlying sentinel posted here and there on either side of them on the look-out; and seeing an eligible spot some fifty yards nearer, we stole along to reach it. We were not, however, destined to take this unfair advantage of the enemy. Just as we had half crossed the distance, an ill-fated, abominable little fragment of rock suddenly broke off, and at its first bound away went the herd like lightning over the precipitous rocks, and with a little chirrupping noise like sparrows, were in a few seconds well out of range of bullets. As the natives express it, "they became wind," and we were left behind our rock, looking, after all our toils, to say the least of it, extremely foolish. A shot which I took at some 250 yards was more to relieve ourselves by making a noise than with any hopes of bringing down one of the light-heeled little creatures, for their bounding powers put all correctness of aim at that range out of the question.

The next part of the programme was breakfast, but alas! there were no signs in any direction of the bearer of our supplies, and I now recollected that the rock which had so puzzled us would be quite inaccessible to the coolie and his precious charge, without which he himself was useless.

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