On the return of the men, who had of course seen nothing, we set off for home, climbing down the edge of the ridge where yellow colchicum starred the turf. It was steep—verging on the precipitous in places—and Jane frankly expressed her satisfaction when we accomplished the worst part and entered a dense jungle of scrubby bushes, all of which seemed to grow spines of sorts. A bear was said to have been seen here yesterday, so we kept our weather eyelids lifting, but were not favoured with a sight of him. We had almost gained the bottom of the hill, with but two short miles to dinner and a tub, when weird shrieks and whistles were exchanged between our people and an excited villager below. The shikari, his eyes gleaming with uncontrollable excitement, announced that the “big stag” was waiting for me at that very moment!—and therewith Ahmed Bot dashed off down the hill, leaving me to follow as best I might. Leaving my wife in charge of the tiffin coolie, I tumbled off after the shikari, whom I found gloating with the messenger over the inspiriting particulars of the monarch of the glen, which, I understood, crouched expectant some paltry 2000 feet above us, near the top of the nullah!
It was past six o’clock, and the light already showing signs of waning, so we lost no time in attacking the hill again. I was pretty well “done,” and had to accept a tow from the shikari, and hand in hand we pressed up that accursed hill until, at seven o’clock, the sun set and it began to grow dusk. Lying down near the edge of the snow, to gain breath and let the shikari crawl round and “look” the face of the hill, I was soon moved to activity by the news that the stag was lying under a pine tree within a few hundred yards. A short “crawl” brought me within sight of the beast, who lay half-hidden by a rock. It was now so dark that even with my glasses I could only make sure that it was a “horn beast” and not a hind; there was no time to lose, so, putting up my sight for 150 yards, I let him have it, and was nearly as much surprised as gratified to see him roll out on the snow to the shot. My vexation and disgust may be imagined when I found the noble beast to be a miserable 8-pointer, which I would never have fired at if I could have seen its head properly. Heartily consigning the shikari, together with the mendacious villager and all his kind, to a hot place, I dolefully stumbled away downhill again in the gathering dark, and finally deposited my weary and dejected self on board the boat, after fourteen hours of the hardest walking I have ever done.
There is a confused tale prevalent that the bear, taking a mean advantage of my absence, has been down to the village and eaten a few ponies, or frightened them—I can’t make out which.
CHAPTER VII
BACK TO SRINAGAR
Easter Day, April 23.—We left the Erin district early in the morning following the bara singh fiasco, and punted and poled up the river to join the Smithsons in a last attack upon the duck. We found the bold Colonel,
“Rough with slaughter and red with fight,”
enjoying himself hugely among the jheels, and we prepared to join in the fray; but our chasse was put an end to by the discovery that the 14th, and not the 15th, was the last legal day for shooting. So we packed away our guns and towed up to Srinagar, which we reached on Sunday afternoon.
Our brief experience of camping and “shikar” had proved to my wife that she was not cast in the heroic mould of a female Nimrod. Not being a shot herself—as Charlotte is—she saw that, as far as she was concerned, a shooting expedition with the Smithsons would entail a great deal of solitary rumination in camp, while the rest of the party pursued the red bear to his den, or chased the nimble markhor up and down the precipices. The joys of reading, knitting, and washing the family clothes might—probably would—pall after a time; and the physical exertion of “walking with the guns” in Kashmir is decidedly more of an undertaking than over a Perthshire grouse moor! Our original arrangement, before coming out to join the Smithsons, was that the time should be spent in camping, boating, “loafing,” and shooting. Being perfectly ignorant of the conditions of life out here, we were unaware of the fact that it is practically impossible to combine serious shooting with any other form of amusement. In Scotland one may stalk one day, fish the next, and golf the third, but out here it is not so. The worshipper of Diana must be prepared to sacrifice everything else at her shrine; he must go far afield, and be prepared to live hard and work hard, and even then it may befall that his trophies of the chase are none too plentiful. That will depend a good deal on his shikari and his own knowledge, together with luck.
Walter had the good fortune to come upon two fine stags not far from his camp almost as soon as he got there. He was within fifty yards of them as they were moving slowly in deep snow, and he killed them both; the best of these was a remarkably fine 10-pointer, length of horn 41 inches and span 38-1/2 inches. His wife spent an equal time in the same neighbourhood and never saw anything.[1]
[1] That lady subsequently killed a remarkably good 13-pointer bara singh and some bears in October.