Page:Younghusband - Kashmir.pdf/33

 A SHOOTING CAMP 9

paths which only a native could detect. At each village dogs howled dismally at us, but not a soul was astir. We gradually approached the dark outlines of the mountains, and near their base, while it was still pitch dark, we were joined by other hill-men, and here I had to dismount and walk. Silently—for we did not want to scare away the animals—we ascended the mountain-side, and by sunrise were 8000 feet above the valley. The men were now visible, and like their class were hard and keen, clearly used to living on mountain- sides in cold and heat, and to be ever peering into distances. The principal was a grey, grizzled, old- looking man, although I daresay he was really not over fifty; hard and tough, and very grave and earnest—for to him all else in the world is play, ‘and hunting wild animals is man’s real work in life.

On we now went along the mountain-side, and now through .deep snow, for we were on a north- ward-facing slope of an outlying spur. And ail slopes which face northward bear snow later and are wooded, while southward-facing slopes are bare. On these latter slopes the sun’s rays fall directly and almost at right angles, and in consequence snow quickly disappears: while on the northern slopes the sun’s rays only slant across the surface ;