Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/315

 which is at the end of the feather, is a white eye. The feathers on the back are of a game brown, tipped with black, in which is also the white spot: these birds are very rare and very valuable. I also received a fine hawk, and some small birds of brilliant feather: also the heads and horns of four gooral, the small wild deer of the Hills.

20th.—First met Colonel Arnold, of the 16th Lancers; we talked of the old regiment. Nothing pleases me so much as the kindness and affection with which my relatives, who were in this gallant corps, are spoken of by the old 16th.

22nd.—Not having forgotten the Hill woman I saw on our return from the waterfall, I rode alone to Būttah, hoping to catch sight of her, but was disappointed: en route, my dog Sancho put up a nide of Kallinge pheasants; they rose with a phurr,—as the natives call the noise of a bird,—as of a partridge or quail suddenly taking wing.

23rd.—Colonel Everest has a fine estate near Bhadráj, called "The Park;" I rode over with a most agreeable party to breakfast there this morning, and to arrange respecting some boundaries, which, after all, we left as unsettled as ever; it put me in mind of the child's play:—

"'Here stands a post.'—'Who put it there?' 'A better man than you, touch it if you dare.'"

Boundaries in the Hills are determined, not by landmarks, but by the fall of the rain; in the division of a mountain, all that land is yours down which the rain water runs on your side, and on the opposite side, all the land is your neighbour's over which the water makes its way downwards.

Colonel Everest is making a road—a most scientific affair; the obstacles to be conquered are great,—levelling rocks, and filling up khuds. The Park is the finest estate in the Hills.

25th.—I was fortunate in being able to procure camels, and sent off my baggage from Rajpūr in time to allow the animals to return to Meerut to be in readiness to march with the army there collecting for Afghānistan.