MARIO:EAR'S SHOOTING IN THE HIMALAYAS.*

As the omniverous appetite of the densely-packed Celestials would make short work of game in China proper, it may be said that we - have now narratives of British sporting adventures in every at- tainable region ; since obstacles all but insuperable shut a man out from Central Asia or Central Africa. From North Cape to the Cape of Good Hope, from the plains of India to the prairies of North America and the Rocky Mountains, the British sportsman has exercised his skill and his pluck. As a crowning tale, Colonel Markham comes with his shooting adventures in the loftiest re- gion of the globe; one of his objects, indeed, the Ovis Ammon, or wild sheep of Thibet, being only found accidentally at a lower eleva- tion than 15,000 feet above the level of the sea.

The book in which Colonel Markham narrates his sporting ad- ventures from the foot of the Himalayas to some of their highest passes and table-lands, nearly 20,000 feet above the sea, is some- times curt and generally superficial, the sportsman seeing little more than obvious points. But it is rapid, readable, varied, in- teresting, and never tedious from overdoing. The mere sport- ing is not pushed to an extreme ; the introduction of rare ani- mals, indeed of most of the animals pursued, is accompanied by an account sufficient to convey an idea of them; and the narra- tive is relieved by pictures of the sublime scenery among which the pursuit led, as well as by anecdotes and sketches of the people. In these mountains, too, the Colonel made a friend, a Mr. Wilson, who has settled there as a sportsman, and whose expe- rience not only facilitated our author's sport, but has varied the book by some adventures of his own. The character of the Colonel himself is well adapted to the style of the sportsman. Frank, genial, and with fine spirits, he has also a wide knowledge of men and sporting ; having shot and hunted in the New World as well as in the Old, before his regiment was ordered to the East Indies, in 1846 ; and he attended to his military duties by six months' leave of absence at a stretch, till he finally left the country in 1852.

Except the tiger, which is rare, the most dangerous animals in the Himalaya are bears and wild boars ; for the leopard, if not a coward, is by no means a dangerous antagonist, being matched by the Thibetian dog, and capable of being held by an unarmed man till assistance arrives, if near—though the holder gets mauled, of course. The most numerous and consequently the most frequent sport are animals of the goat or wild sheep rather- than of the stag genus—the chamois, as it were, of the Himalayas. These creatures, whether the Tahir, the Gerow, the Gooral, the Burrell, the Ibex, the Ovis Ammon, or even the wild horse of Tartary, are not danger- ous in themselves. On the contrary, it is their timidity which forms one of the difficulties attending their pursuit ; as the almost inaccessible places which they more or less frequent forms the other difficulty. It is true, that if a man falls down a precipice, it matters little whether. he .falls from an elevation of 1000 or 10,000 feet above the sea level • it is enough for him in either case. But the distances to go, the ruggedness of the way, the cold even in summer, the snow-storms, the icy streams, and the other circumstances which try the sportsman's strength and endurance, multiply with the height and magnitude of the mountains. Him- alayan, sport tells upon the frame—possibly on the constitution. Of his own officers and other sportsmen who accompanied Colonel Markham during his six years' excursions, some soon went off; some • Shooting in the Himalayas. A Journal of Sporting Adventures and Travel in Chinese Tartary, Ladac, Tbibet, Cashmere fre. By Colonel Frederick Markham, c.B., Thirty-second Regiment. With Illust,rationa. -Published by Bentley.

only went out on alternate days or so, and rested in the intervals ; Sir Edward Campbell, an aide-de-camp of Napier, and whose pen- cil has furnished some striking sketches of scenery, alone went a second time.

In home foxhunting phrase, the " country " of Colonel Mark- ham was between the 30th and 344th degrees of North latitude and the 74th and 80th degrees of East longitude ; embracing Cash- mere and Thibet, as well as parts of the British possessions or " protected " districts ; and would have extended into Chinese Tartary, but the Colonel was turned back. In this region are the sources of the Ganges, the Indus, and the Five Rivers; though Colonel Markham did not extend his pilgrimage to all their begin- nings. The fame of the Ganges took him to its source ; which, bursting from a glacier, is worthy of the long and widespread cele- brity of the sacred-stream.

" A fine cold morning, and we started early to accomplish the five miles to the source of the mighty river. The opposite bank being the best for burrell, we were in great hopes that we might find sufficient snow left to enable us to cross the river; but the snow that at times bridges over the stream was gone. The walking was bad, for in all the small tributary streams were stones and rocks incrusted with ice, which made them very difficult to cross. On the opposite aide we saw immense flocks of burrell, but there was no getting at them. At last the great glacier of the Ganges was reached ; and never can I for- get my first impressions when I beheld it before me in all its savage gran- deur. The glacier, thickly studded with enormous loose rocks and earth, is about a mile in width, and extends upwards many miles, towards an im- mense mountain, covered with perpetual snow down to its base, and its glittering summit piercing the very skies, rising 21,000 feet above the level of the sea. The chasm in the glacier, through which the sacred stream rushes forth into the light of day, is named the Cow's Mouth, and is held in the deepest reverence by all Ilindoos ; and the regions of eternal frost in its vicinity are the scenes of many of their most sacred mysteries. The Ganges enters the world no puny stream, but bursts forth from its icy womb, a river thirty or forty yards in breadth, of great depth, and very rapid. A burrell was killed by a lucky shot across the river just at the mouth ; it fell back- wards into the torrent, and was no more seen. Extensive as my travels since this day have been through these beautiful mountains, and amidst all the splendid scenery I have looked on, I can recall none so strikingly magnifi-

cent as the glacier of the Ganges. * *

"Having spoken of the magnificence of the scenery about the glacier of the Ganges when I visited it in summer, I must not pass it over when seen in the autumn ; at which time, the atmosphere being cleared by the rains, the huge mountains around unshrouded by vapours, sharp and distinct in out- line, stand forth in all their beauty, from the deep-blue sky they almost seem to pierce. I counted one morning, whilst sitting at breakfast, sixteen peaks of everlasting snow around us : no view I ever beheld made such an impression upon me. I can never forget it, and long to go back and see it once more. I have lived in the solitudes of the American forests in their summer beauty and in their winter snows, stood under the Falls of Nia- gara, and seen the ocean in its wildest moods ; but this remains impressed on my memory as a scene far surpassing all. The glacier itself being 11,000 feet above the level of the sea, I should think that the highest peaks in its vicinity must be from 21 to 25,000 feet ; but I believe they have not been measured."

As a long resident in the Himalayas all the year round, Mr. Wilson's observations have a more extended character than an occa- sional sportsman can attain, and involve peculiarities that a sports- man might not have leisure to observe or follow out. This is an ac- count of catching bear-cubs.

" No wild animal is, I consider, so quickly and easily tamed as the young of the snow bear. I remember at one time particularly wanting a couple, and went out for a few days purposely in search of them. " The first day I found an old he-bear, which I wounded and lost. On the next I killed a she-bear, but she had no cubs. On the third I was more fortunate ; for, early in the morning, I came suddenly on the mother of a fa- mily, with her two little ones, just the size I wanted. They were not more than fifty yards distant, and a single bullet sufficed to roll the old lady over ; she fell some hundred feet into the ravine beneath, which was full of snow.

" One man had accompanied me ; and we immediately set about catching' the young ones, a feat easier talked of than performed. When they saw us coming, off they started up the hill, as hard as they could go, and were vary soon out of sight. Several times their cries directed us in our pursuit; but as often as we found them we lost them again, for they would not allow us to get near enough to attempt to lay hold of them, setting off again at score the instant they caught sight of us. At last we seemed to have lost the little things altogether ; we could neither see nor hear anything of them, nor trace the way they had gone. Sending the man in one direction, I went in another, and after wandering about a long while had the satisfaction of hearing them crying some distance off further up the hill. Following the sound, I discovered them in a little hole, and luckily got close to it before disturbing them. Having them, as I now thought, secure, I hallooed for the man to join me, and sat down at the mouth of the hole to await his arrival. I waited patiently for more than an hour, often getting up and hallooing, for, having left my rifle at the spot where I had shot the old bear, I could not attract his attention in any other way ; and at last, there being no signs of his coming, I had to set to work by myself. " Thrusting my arm up the hole, I could just feel some fur with the tips of my fingers, and with considerable difficulty managed to get hold of a cub, and pulled it out, biting and scratching awfully. Having got one out, the other would not stay in ; so I was obliged to catch hold of it also. I soon found that I had more than I had bargained for : holding them by the scruff of their necks, one in each hand, the little brutes wriggled about so, and uaed their sharp claws to such good purpose on my hands, that after holding both

until I was fairly beat I was obliged to let one go. Retaining hold of one, I fastened the end of a long belt which I wore round my waist on the neck of my captive, and set out to return to our bivouac. The little thing struggled a good deal ; and when we had gone about half a mile, just as I met my man coming up the hill, the belt broke, and away scampered the

little wretch. We started after it down hill at a break-neck pace ; but to no purpose, it was impossible to overtake it ; and when it began to ascend the opposite hill, we were so blown that we were glad to cry enough, and went home to breakfast, thoroughly disgusted.

" I thought, however, that we might as well have the akin of the old one, and went out in the evening to bring it in. Strange to say, we found her

still alive, although unable to move from the spot, and I had to put a bullet through her head. She must have fallen at least two hundred feet ; enough of itself to have killed her, one would imagine.

" We had just finished stripping off the akin and were about to COMO away, when we heard one of the young ones crying ; and soon after saw it near the spot where I had first found them in the morning, having most probably returned in search of its dam.

" There being now two men besides myself, we succeeded in catching it ; and when brought near the skin of the old one, it was quite distressing to witness the concern it evinced. First hunting for the teats, it endeavoured to suck, then began to fondle the skin about the head, as if trying to awaken it, and when it found all its efforts to do so unavailing it coiled itself up on the akin. It did not now seem to take any notice of us, and when one of the men commenced to drag the skin along the snow it very quietly fol- lowed ; and when be had to carry the skin on his back it kept close at his heels, and was thus taken to our camp. "Next morning we went out again, in hopes of finding the other cub: nor were we disappointed. It also had returned, and was making the forest re- sound with its cries. We soon caught it ; but there being no skin to follow, it gave us an infinity of trouble to lead home. After breakfast, we started to return to the village ; and before we reached it in the evening, the little bears appeared so reconciled to their captivity, that we took off the ropes by which they were led, and they came along with us just like two little dogs, actually seeming afraid to be left many yards behind. For a few months, they make very nice pets, but soon become too strong and rough in their play to be left at large."