One day while following up some wild sheep, I came upon two bears very
busily engaged in digging up the snow where an avalanche had fallen.
Being hid from their sight, I determined to wait some little time to
ascertain why they were digging. I accordingly placed myself behind a
rock, and allowed them to work away. In about an hour they had made a
very good opening; and on using my glass I found they had got hold of
something. I now pushed up to them. One immediately showed fight, and
came out to meet me. He made one charge at me, which I received with a
rifle ball, killing him the very first shot. The other bear got away.
On going up to the spot where they had been at work, I found the
exhumed bodies of three wild sheep. They had been carried away and
buried underneath the avalanche, probably as far back as the previous
year, considering the very compact and frozen state the snow was in.
The sheep were in excellent order. We skinned them, and took them to
our tents, and excellent mutton we all had for several days.
On the melting of the snows, the golden eagle of the Himalaya--a
magnificent bird, often measuring thirteen feet from the tip of one
wing to the other--is one of the best of pointers a sportsman can
follow, to ascertain where any animal has been carried away in an
avalanche. He hovers over the spot, constantly alighting, and then
taking wing again; but if once you observe him pecking with his beak
you may proceed to the spot, and be certain of finding, a very short
distance below the snow, the carcass of a wild sheep, as fresh as it
was on the day on which it was carried away.
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