"أيام ثيم ولَّت" [و‎‎٢‎٢] (٢٤٨/٤٣)

22
with d report thdt d bldck bedr dnd two l6opdrds hdd been seen
going into d edve in the vicinity, sndrling dnd fighting with
edch other. This story was inherently improbable, but I thought
it worth while to take my rifle and lie up where I had a good
view of the entrance to the cave. As leopards do not normally
move about in the open during daylight hours, I did not take up
position until near sun-down, but I then heard from a man who had
been watching that the animals had come out and made their way,
still squabbling, round the spur into the next valley. There, as
night fell, I could hear them snarling all around but saw
nothing; and it was only then that I realised that there were
three leopards in the vicinity, of which one must have been on
heat, and one must have been black. I was mortified at having
missed the only chance I ever had of shooting a black panther - a
very rare trophy indeed.
The next day we marched on down several thousand feet to Chamba -
a pleasant little town, or large village, on the banks of a
stream. There we took on a fresh team of mules and attendants
and I met my professional Shikari who was, rather surprising1y, a
hill Brahmin. From Chamba we marched some hundred miles due
North by easy stages following a river valley and spending the
nights in government rest-houses. I was intrigued to find that
in one of them a previous occupant (presumably an Indian) had
inscribed in the Complaints Book the terse comment "Fles". There
was no way of knowing whether he meant fleas or flies but the
point was immaterial as there were plenty of both!
At the end of the hundred or so miles we reached a village where
we said goodbye to the mules and hired porters for the climb over
the 18,000' pass across the Pir Panjal ranqe. The next night we
spent in a shepherd's stone hut at 15,000' and I experienced for
the first time the very unpleasant sensation of mountain
sickness. It was even worse next day when we crossed the
snow-covered pass, but the view almost made up for it. Looking
down over my shooting 'block', it seemed as if there was not so
much as a square foot of level ground for hundreds of miles, and
I wondered where we would find a spot on which to lie down and
sleep. In the middle distance were the serried snowy peaks of
the Great Himalayan Range, and in between a deep valley which
marked the limit of my block.
During the ensuing weeks I managed to shoot reasonably good heads
of all the game on my license, except for the snow-1eopard, but I
confess that I found the lack of company and the monotony of the
diet somewhat oppressive, and wished, at times, that I had taken
my leave on a house-boat on a Kashmir lake. However such an
alternative would not have met with the approval of my military
superiors, who expected subalterns to spend their leave in manly,
hardy, outdoor sport and not among the fleshpots! However I did
have the experience of a night of heavy snow (at about 10,000')
at the end of June, and so was able to boast that I had been
snowed on in India on mid-summer's night!