The Astor markhor
The beast looks such a gentleman with his lean head and small ears, his powerful back and quarters, and his dignified carriage. Alas! it is all looks! His smell is something fearful, and manners he has none. Ibex and burrel can be trusted, when they are lying down after their morning feed, at all events not to move far; but markhor, no. You may watch a flock feeding till late in the morning, and they will lie down comfortably, apparently for the day; you begin your stalk with everything in your favour; suddenly there is a clatter of stones and a cloud of dust, you peep over a spur, and see the whole flock galloping wildly down the hill. After going half a mile, they probably pull up, begin feeding again, and again stretch themselves out on the ground as if nothing had happened. This little manœuvre probably necessitates your climbing painfully back to the top of the ridge, and starting your stalk afresh, the intervening ground being impracticable. Once more you try, leaving a man on the top of the hill to watch and signal what the beasts do. You stalk carefully on; the watcher makes no sign; you creep on the last hundred yards, to the exact spot you wish to reach, and there is nothing. You search the ground as far as you can get, and there are only a few footprints leading over impassable ground; you climb back again, probably the only way you can go, vowing vengeance on the watcher, and he tells you that the markhor lay quiet till you were beginning your last crawl in—every second he expected to hear the shot: suddenly they jumped up and disappeared, and owing to the steepness of the ground he could not tell which way they had gone. This sort of thing will happen over and over again, particularly in Astor.
Perseverance combined with good management always brings luck in the end, but big bags of really fine markhor are not to be expected; one fair chance for each fortnight on the shooting ground is a good allowance.
It is always a pretty sight seeing markhor move down to their feeding ground in the evening from the crags above where they have been lying during the afternoon. Full gallop they come, sending the stones whizzing in front of them, over the most breakneck ground as if it were a level plain; rearing up on their hind legs and butting at one another, a venerable old fifty-incher probably playing with his great-grandson, a young spark of only twenty; the whole lot of them thoroughly enjoying the frolic. Ibex will play, and prettily too, but no beast appears so thoroughly to enter into the fun of a good skylark as a markhor. The master buck of the flock, however, seems to keep the youngsters in pretty good order. The writer was much amused once, watching a flock coming down a particularly difficult cliff. The best buck led the way, the flock following in single file soberly enough, the ground apparently was not safe even for a markhor to frolic on; turning a corner, the old fellow came to a wall of rock that, after careful inspection, he did not think good enough to descend, and he turned back to take another route. Just as he made up his mind, one of the smaller bucks in rear evidently chaffed him. The old fellow went for him at once, drove him right up to the edge of the cliff with his horns, as nearly as possible pushed him over, and then, with an air of great importance, led the flock round his own way.
1. Cashmere
2. Astor
3. Trans-Indus