3-078-151 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Ibex-shooting in the Shigar Nullahs, Baltistan, Himalayas, 1890. 'We see ibex, 2 p.m.; at last they come down, 5.30 p.m.; and I get a shot at one; and bag another as they go off; two to one against the ibex...'extract from the diary of a sportsman - Captain B. R. James, of the East Surrey Regiment: "...I found myself at Arundoo, the terminal moraine of the great Shigar glacier...About two in the afternoon we saw one ibex standing out against the sky on the highest point for miles round...The shikarri and I...waited patiently behind a rock...They came on gradually to within two hundred yards of us...I got a shot at the oldest and whitest of them all...I bagged five ibex, the last being the very one I had first fired at. He was in wretched condition, with a large wound in his quarter made by the bullet of the 25th...I was witness of a curious sight, while stalking an ibex lying by himself on a small patch of grass. The shikarri suddenly pulled me down, and pointed out to me a lynx about two hundred yards off, so intent on stalking the ibex that he had not seen us. We watched him stalking for a long time, and I made up my mind to try and get a shot at him. The moment I moved, however, he was off, and I never caught sight of him again'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.