w much is it beloved by
the hunters! Besides the great fallow deer, you meet there the hind, the
stag, the mountain sheep and an immense variety of birds, among which I
want to mention above all the golden pheasant, and others of red or
snow-white plumage, very large partridges and immense eagles.

The villages situated along the Sind do not shine by their dimensions.
They contain, for the greatest part, not more than ten to twenty huts of
an extremely miserable appearance. Their inhabitants are clad in rags.
Their cattle belongs to a very small race.

I crossed the river at Sambal, and stopped near the village Gounde,
where I procured relay horses. In some villages they refused to hire
horses to me; I then threatened them with my whip, which at once
inspired respect and obedience; my money accomplished the same end; it
inspired a servile obedience--not willingness--to obey my least orders.

Stick and gold are the true sovereigns in the Orient; without them the
Very Grand Mogul would not have had any preponderance.

Night began to descend, and I was in a hurry to cross the defile which
separates the villages Gogangan and Sonamarg. The road is in very bad
condition, and the mountains are infested by beasts of prey which in the
night descend into the very villages to seek their prey. The country is
delightful and very fertile; nevertheless, but few colonists venture to
settle here, on account of the neighborhood of the panthers, which come
to the dooryards to seize domestic animals.

At the very exit of the defile, near the village of Tchokodar, or
Thajwas, the half obscurity prevailing only permitted me to distinguish
two dark masses crossing the road. They were two big bears followed by a
young one. I was alone with my servant (the caravan having loitered
behind), so I did not like to attack them with only one rifle; but the
long excursions which I had made on the mountain had strongly developed
in me the sense of the hunter. To jump from my horse, shoot, and,
without even verifying the result, change quickly the cartridge, was the
affair of a second. One bear was about to jump on me, a second shot
made it run away and disappear. Holding in my hand my loaded gun, I
approached with circumspection, the one at which I had aimed, and found
it laying on its flank, dead, with the little cub beside it. Another
shot killed the little one, after which I went to work to take off the
two superb jet-black skins.

This inciden