FLIRTING WITH DEATH.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4756, 26 September 1924, Page 4

FLIRTING WITH DEATH.

AN IBEX HUNT. ADVENTURE IN THE HIMALAYAS. When a careless visitor gazes at an ibex mounted in a glass case in a natural history museum he little realises the story of daring and endurance that may lie behind it. Douglas Burden, who collected family groups of big game for the American Museum of’ Natural History through the jungles of Indo-China and the Vale of Kashmir, tells in, “The Atlantic Monthly” of clambering, at great risk to his neck down two thousand- feet of cliffs and sheer rocks after an ibex, in the Himalayas, and after the excitement was over all the stoic remark his unfeeling guide, Rahima, made was, “God always taking care of good sahibs. Sahib not falling.” The ibex is a kind of mountain goat, which lives above the snow-line in the daytime, descending at night to graze. ’ According to Mr Burden the put suit of this game] is most difficult and fascinating. He gives this account of the craftiness .of the old goat of the mountains, veiling his own adventurous qualities under the pretence that he was too lazy to get up in the morning: The ibex, they said, was now lying down about two- thousand feet above camp where we could< keep a good eye on the -enemy. Before daylight next morning we crept up after the ibex, but it was all wasted energy, for he had slipped away, and when we got there only his fresh tracks were to be seen. These we followed about a mile into the snow and then saw him about a thousand feet above us circling back. . He saw us. too, and turned. This time he selected a position from which he commanded a wonderful view of all the ground, and then lay down. Any attempt at a stalk was useless, so we sat behind some rocks and patched him. Late in the afternoon he got up to feed and we made another attempt. He looked up and caught us in the act of crossing a snowslide : tso we just sank slowly dowp in the snow, hoping that he would begin to feed again. But he had no such intention, and stood with his eyes glued on us. So we waited and waited there in the snow until I : though I should go ■ distracted. . After about an hour of this absurd performance the ibex did not interest me in the least. The following day we got up before daylight again. It was 'always the same—this getting up before daylight —and I loathed it. Russlpon, the tiffin coolie, -had found out that the only way to wake up the sahib wais to bring him a cup of tea and to sit there .till he drank' ifi Russleon Would hold my clothes ready for me to pu 1 . on, so then I would simply have to get up and dress by candlelight. It was awful getting out of a nice warm furry sleeping-bag into the cold air and darkness, and in a minute I would have to rush to the fire. Coolies would immediately spread blankets for me to sit on, and so I would snuggle up to the fire, yawning and shivering, and getting smoke into my eyes until I cursed the day that I ever came on an ibex hunt. Meantime one coolie would be massaging my legs, another would be tying on my grasxj shoes, while yet - a third would bring, me a breakfast that I was almost .too , sleepy to eat, and after all that the day’s hunt proved to be merely a repetition of the last. We made a very long detour and would have gotten very close to the ibex, but he heard the crunch of the snow and from below he circled unseen and then suddenly peeped down at us over a ledge about four hundred yards away. I looked at him through the telescope for about the on p -hundredth time, and wondered, ais I gazed at the curious horns, if Iwould' ever have the' pleasure of seeing them in camp. Then he went right up to the very summit of- the mountain. I sank back into the snow, very disgusted with it all, for it looked well-nigh hopeless. From below the roar of unseen waters racing down the chasm suddenly came up strong on the wind. For a moment, the sound filled the air. Then it grew fainter and fainter, and was swallowed up again ill endless space just as the voice of a child is swfept away and lost in a storm. The mountainside was in silencte. Rahima did not want, to look at me. He kept his eyes turned away and fingered his stick. 1 took out my fieldglasses. . The ibex was struggling through deep snow up near the summits.- Ii watched him till he lay down on a slab of bare rock. “Rahima.” I said, “what doing now ?” “See dem, see deni.” was- his characteristic reply. / "Pleases-, now sitting,’’ he went on. '“Evening kail down- coming for foodihg.”' And the ibex did come down that evenitig, and, though we were ready for him, he fooled us again. We had whited for him too long, and as a result we had to descend a very steep mountain in the dark —a somewhat hazardous proceeding. 1 The next day at last luck was w'ith us. We found the old ibex asleepi in the terrible ‘chasm that divides the right wall ■ of Abadabur Nullah into two halves. That place is a veritable gorge of death into which rocks .are forever hurling themselves down the shelving gneiss that acts as a floor of the chasm. The ibex, was lying down, . some three hundred yards away, almost vertically beneath me. To shoot I literally, had. to lean over the edge, my shikari holding on to my legs as ;T fired,' and, to-say the least, 1 surprised myself by killing him. Several other ibex rap acrosjs the, floor of the chasm when I fired. One male was almost hit by a falling rock and I saw him jump skilfully behind a projecting ledge' as the rock went crashing by. Then for some time 1 watched them climb the wall on the far side. Now arid then they got into very tight places that necessitated a careful study, of the ground, followed by three or four flying leaps that nearly made my hair stand on end to see, and I burst out with a “Gee ! Did you see that, Rahima ?” Two small ibex were following their

mothei at the end of the line, until, they came to a ispot which they simply could not manoeuvre. When they were getting left far behind, they showed some initiative and, turning back down into the chasm again, they came up by another route, going all the time just as fast as they could go until they caught up with the others. When the excitement was over and I looked back at the fallen ibex, I hardlv knew what to think. It would be impossible to describe the many, varied, and conflicting emotions that I have experienced in shooting game. Sometimes it is great glee, sometimes regret, sometimes a combination of pity and sorrow and a strong distaste for the whole business. On this occa-'-sion I think there was a certain satisfied feeling of “Welk at last.” At the same time a natural feeling of regret, for it seems that the longer the chase continues the more of a friend the object o' the chase becomes. You get to know him pretty well—his little tricks and habits , his favourite haunte and feeding grounds—and it is impossible, therefore, that one should experience only a feeling of glee when the big head has fallen and his battle is at an end.”