ridge when uncovered, and I fancy the actual ridge itself was too rugged to walk along, for our track lay parallel to but some fifty feet below it.

A deota or shrine stood by the last rock, and every man, as he arrived, cast down his load and went up to it to make his obeisance and lay his little votive offering on the ground in front. Humble little offerings they were a few grains of rice as a general rule, a pinch of barley meal, or even a couple of mountain flowers. The oblation offered, they gathered in groups and passed the social pipe from mouth to mouth before continuing the march.

The sky now became suddenly black, the wind rose, the thunder growled-in fact, all the now familiar preliminaries of yesterday's blizzard began to repeat themselves; so there was no time to be lost, or we should be caught in a far more exposed place than we had been in before. We hoped that all our people were close up; but on counting heads found that half a dozen, including both our servants, were missing, and our glasses soon picked them out a good 1500 or 2000 feet below, advancing at a most leisurely pace, and making heavy weather of it owing to the depth of the snow and the steepness of the ascent. The delinquents, in spite of our warning to lose no time on this particular day of all days, had evidently dallied even longer than usual over their breakfast before leaving camp. It didn't seem possible

for them to get up to us before the storm broke; so we tossed up to settle which should wait for them, and which should go on with the main body of coolies, who were now ready to move off again. It fell to me to go forward; and I reluctantly left Addington, thinking that I should not see him again that day. However, the coin had decided the question, and off I went. Our men moved out in single file very slowly and cautiouslyeach one, as he reached the open slope, putting his feet in exactly the same dints in the snow as his predecessor. The last man had an awkward load, and was evidently frightened. Before he had gone thirty yards he missed putting his foot into the proper place, and fell. Luckily he fell forward, and lay still until our shikarries reached him and put him on his feet again. However, his nerve had now gone: he lamented bitterly that he had no grass shoes, and said he dared not go any farther. then told him that I would "see him across (a very inefficient shepherd, had he but realised it); and it seemed to comfort him to know not only that I was following all the way only one step behind, but also that I shared his hard lot in not being the possessor of grass shoes either.

I

It was a grisly passage. I don't mind standing on high places or looking down precipitous ones; but that length of steep snow-slopes that ran in one awful, smooth, unvarying sweep thousands of feet down on our right hand to

the pines below, which looked liked pigmy trees owing to their distance, made me conjure up all kinds of thoughts of missing the next hole, of putting my foot instead on to the unbeaten snow which had been frozen so hard by yesterday's storm, and then of glissading away and away down that slope of death. The same idea evidently possessed my "file leader." He constantly made a partly false step, and then fell and lay. He had to lie, because I at once put all the weight I could spare on to his back to keep him quiet till my shikarry, who walked a step in front of him, passed back his long staff for the laden man to cling to while he rose.

There was a good threequarters of a mile of this, and as our rate of progress was about half a mile an hour, it seemed endless. But all the time my mind was brooding over the task that lay before Addington. If I found it difficult to help a frightened hillman over, what Iwould be his task in conducting my servant across? As a matter of fact, he had no trouble at all. The "sheep's" intellect was too slow to scent any danger in nice smooth white snow, and he plodded across it without a tremor. This was a great piece of luck, and another was that the storm, after giving us one or two short snow squalls, passed suddenly away; so Addington had not long to wait, and about an hour after I had got out of the Pass he rejoined me.

This, I suppose, was the moment of our greatest elation.

Like the Peri who sang in her joy that "heaven was won," we, too, felt that our task was done. After weeks of fruitless essay, the Pass was behind us, the barrier was surmounted, and a few days more would see us marching into that country whose name I am not going to give you.

some

So with light hearts we dropped downhill for miles, until we came suddenly to the head of a large open valley and were told that the march was done. The snow lay too deep all round to pitch tents in comfort. So we persuaded our reluctant and weary carriers to go a little farther to a minute patch of emerald grass which had lately shaken off its winter coat of white.

On that emerald sward we raised our tents, and, little as we could foretell it, on that emerald sward we were destined to spend the whole of the rest of our leave, for it was the "NoWHERE" to which I have been leading you all this time.

The place had not even a name. We called it "Talso," but it was not the real Talso, which was miles farther back, and none of our followers would recognise it as such.

And now I must explain how it was that, at this particular place, the impetus which had carried us so far died away and left us stranded. When we started to cross the Pass, it was on the understanding that our carriers, who had already come three marches with us, should not be asked to go farther than that day's stage. We should then be out

of British India and in a native State, to whose ruler we had written asking for help in the way of coolies and supplies. We were sanguine enough to expect to find both waiting for us at the first village over the border, and so we agreed to release our present set of men without a qualm, although we took the precaution to bribe (and we had to bribe high) a couple of them, in addition to our shikarries, to remain permanently with us-one to hew wood and draw water, the other to act as letter - carrier between us and the nearest British post-office.

But all our plans fell to the ground. The Rajah wired and wrote to us, by round-about routes through British India, that the country for fifty miles in front of us was still uninhabited, and therefore there were no men to send to our assistance, but that he would help us on as soon as he could.

Then week succeeded week, and finally, as our leave drew to its appointed end, we were compelled to appeal to the nearest British Deputy-Commissioner to release us from the trap into which we had fallen by despatching a rescueparty to take us back; and so, by the irony of fate, it happened that on one and the same fine afternoon forty men came over the Pass from the British side to carry us to India again, while a similar number marched up the valley from the opposite direction with instructions from the Rajah to take us through his

were

territory to the land where we would be. Ours was Hobson's choice, so sadly we turned our faces southwards, and thus ended our trip to "NOWHERE.” In another week or 80 we back once more in a land of ice, but it was, alas! ice that lived in chests and tinkled in tumblers only,-in a land of early parades and late dinners, in a land of white uniform and red-tape, a land of roasting beds and sleepless nights,-in fact, in the land of India at midsummer.

When we think now of our long - enforced halt, we find that time has mellowed the asperity of our feelings, and that we really did enjoy it very much. Addington sketched and painted, and I read, and we both worked the surrounding country - side very thoroughly, and though unable to go any distance, we got a certain number of decent heads and skins. In fact, I had one really extraordinary day, of which I subsequently wrote an account to two brothers in different parts of India. of them, without previous collusion, but with singular unanimity, hastened to inform me that my letter "read like a fairy-tale"! so I have no desire to repeat it here.

Both

But some day I shall send an account of it to 'Maga,' and those who read it will probably snort like the warhorse when he says "Ha-ha," and decline to believe a word of it; and yet, like this tale, it will be nothing but the plain, unvarnished truth.

HILLSIDE.

You often hear a man say of a horse, "Oh! he's a rattling good hunter, but can't jump timber, or won't face water." I never think you can or ought to call a horse a "hunter," and you certainly cannot call him a "clinker," unless he will carry you safely over every class of jumpable fence, nor can he be called a hunter unless he has pace enough to live with hounds. What is the use, if hounds run, of a horse that cannot gallop and keep with them, or that stops at any fence, determinedly; you are out of the hunt at once. What people call a good slow hunter is, to my mind, a horse to be avoided, and should have no place in the stable of any man who wants to see hounds. But there is a vast difference between what some people call hunting, and seeing hounds.

Fortunately I've been blessed, for being a poor man I could

never afford to pay a big price for horses, and yet in my small way I have had perhaps more than my share of "real clinkers." I will only touch on those horses which I have owned myself, and tell of their virtues, vices, and performances; but I could give many tales of of "real clinkers ❞— though some of their owners did not know what they had got in them—which I have ridden, belonging to my friends, for I was a light weight, and my friends were many and kind, as all true sportsmen are, so that I often got mounted by them.

I had one dear old horse, a hunter, that stands out by himself in my memory. No horse that ever "looked through a bridle" could beat him to hounds, and that is a big word; but it was the opinion of all who ever knew him and saw him over a country, and their name was legion, for I hunted him for ten seasons in very many countries, both in England and Ireland, and he was quickly known wherever he went, and his fame had often preceded him. His memory lives in many countries even to this day, though all who ever knew him are grey in the beard. Yet many an old pal greets me to-day with, "Well, old Ballyragget, how are you?"

No hounds could go too fast for him, no country could be too strong or too intricate for him, for he was as wise as a man, in fact wiser than many, and he loved hounds and insisted on being with them. The "narrow back" of Meath, with its yawning ditch always towards you, as the Irishman expresses it, the fair stone wall of Galway or the nasty treacherous one of Louth, the wide stretch of gleaming water or the ugly stiff hogbacked stile, the sheep-net of Yorkshire, which is a terror to most, or the iron railings round an enclosure, were all one to old Bally. He knew them all, and seemed to instil the feeling into you, as plainly as if he was saying it: Trust to me, and you are safe. And you

notice of anything, fellows riding and galloping all about and around him; but at the first whimper of a hound, often before I heard it myself, up would go his head, and with ears pricked he would stand still as a statue, listening, not a move, though I often felt his heart beating between my knees from excitement. But no fuss it was real business as well as pleasure with him. He knew a View Holloa and Gone Away as well as I did, but he would not move until you gave him the "office," and then look out! No need to wait for the crowd in the gateway or gap; turn his head where you wanted him to go; that Gone Away had been enough for him, and he was off like a shot from a gun. Reaching into his snafflebridle, for he would never stand a curb, he would pull you almost out of your saddle till he got into the field with the hounds racing in front of him; after that your troubles were over, and he would drop his head to your hand and keep his pace and his place. Like most high-couraged good 'uns he had his peculiarities, and sometimes was a bit of a handful if you did not know him, he was So keen and powerful; so I never put anyone else on him, and he and I at that time lived for and understood each other. Well, he taught me not only how to ride but how to ride to hounds, and I owe the dear old fellow a very deep debt of gratitude.

Got by Lord Waterford's "Red Wing" out of a three