worked

We country round Dhok Huriar early and late for the next five days, but we never saw a sign of the White Ram. He had been there just before-there was no doubt of that; and we were constantly meeting goatherds and grass-cutters who told us that they had seen him, but -when we managed to find the beast they had seen-he never was the one we were after. So at last we decided to move camp a few miles down the river to a new stretch of ground, and on the sixth morning Bahadur and I started to work down parallel to the river to our new beat. But we had hardly gone two miles from Dhok Huriar before we came on the White Ram's fresh and unmistakable tracks in the sand of a nala-bed-he was still somewhere about after all.

We took up the tracks at once. After we had been going about an hour they led us into the head of a long shallow ravine; and as I looked down it I caught the merest glimpse of some animal as it disappeared from view about six hundred yards away in the bed-it might be the beast we were after. So, creeping back, we made a detour to bring us to the edge of the ravine directly over the spot where the beast had been. But when we peered over, there was nothing visible

where else as far as we at first could see. Then all of a sudden a greyish spot well up the opposing slope caught my eye, and when I got my glasses on to it, I realised that I was staring straight into the face of the White Ram, whose body was concealed behind a rock. A fraction of a second later he was gone; but he had seen more than enough of us, and for nine weary hours we tracked him without once sighting him again. For the rest of that trip he vanished into thin air. It was the end of the second round, and he looked a winner all over.

The beginning of the following April saw me back again at Dhok Huriar. On that particular trip I had the most charming camp-site. It was on a terraced field of green barley overlooking the river, and we found a clearing, ready cut in the green crop, just large enough to take my tent. Overhead were the branches of a mulberry-tree which threw a dense patch of shade; underfoot was short green grass; and all around the rustling whispering barley-I had come straight from two months of wandering in the blistering wastes of Mekran, so you can imagine how delightful it all seemed.

The weather was growing distinctly warm already; so each morning we used to start at dawn, and I was wakened by the sound of the Azan from the village mosque close

by-as the first glimmer of light showed in the sky. The sentiment may be hackneyed; but for all that there is something indescribably impressive in the gorgeous Arabic of the Call to Morning Prayer, no matter where you hear itwhether intoned from a minaret of the Jamma Masjid or from the platform of the little mosque of Dhok Huriar.

We had reliable information that the White Ram with a smaller companion was somewhere in the offing, but for the first four days we drew the customary blank. The fifth day is for ever marked with red in the annals of my shooting life. We started the day with a false alarm: one of our flank patrols sent us off on a wild-goose chase after two small rams, and we did not discover our mistake till after an hour of tracking. But we had gone only a mile or two farther when, as we topped a rise, Bahadur seized my arm and dragged me down behind a rock—there, 400 yards away on the top of a little hillock, two oorial rams were standing. They had not seen us, for-as we crouched-they began to move slowly down the slope towards us.

"Look!" whispered Bahadur, shoving the prism-glasses into my hand-"there is not another ram like that on any hill." It was the first clear view that I had ever had of the White Ram; and I knew the feeling which-if you are lucky-you may perhaps feel

once or twice in a lifetimewhen at last a really great head slides into your glasses' field.

The rams were coming steadily nearer, so I waited till-at about 280 yards-I got a good broadside chance. The White Ram collapsed at the shot, and then rolled struggling and kicking down the slope towards us.

I guessed in an instant what had happened: the bullet had gone high, merely grazing his spine, and next moment he would be on his feet again and off-I knew it. But the men were already rushing forward, effectually masking my fire. That terrible failing of the Muhammadan shikari-always intent on cutting a beast's throat while there is still a kick left in him, so that the meat may be halal-once before it had cost me the best Kashmir stag that I am ever likely to

see.

Perforce I joined in the stampede; and, as I started, the ram struggled to his feet. In another moment he was galloping-gaining strength at every stride. My two despairing shots only hastened his departure. And then he was out of sight. Can you picture my feelings of blank dismay ?

We picked up the tracks at once. At first there was plenty of blood; but, to add to our anxieties, the day was dark and cloudy, and the rain might come down in torrents at any moment to blot out every mark. The tracks led us through a long winding valley. Once we got a distant view of

After we had been going about two hours, the tracks brought us out within a mile of a village; there were men and flocks everywhere, so it seemed certain that the White Ram's point must still be far ahead of us. The ground here was a mass of stones, and village sheep had wandered over it in every direction. Our progress grew slower and slower, and it was only by laborious casting that we managed to progress at all. And once Bahadur pointed out a place where our ram had made a tremendous bound which told us plainly that he was very far from crippled.

And then, when hope had reached its lowest ebb, before my very eyes the White Ram rose to his feet beneath an overhanging rock not 100 yards away.

This time the bullet did not miss. "Aram hogaya "-he is at rest, Bahadur muttered, slipping his knife back into its sheath; the White Ram was so obviously dead that by no stretch of imagination might his meat be made halal. There he lay, the cunning old ram of my dreams-so old that his coat, powdered thickly with white hairs, was near the colour of smoked silver. He was mine at last-knocked out in the third round; but, before we had even gralloched him, the rain was coming down in tor

All this happened I shall not say how many years ago. Since Bahadur and I hunted the White Ram the war has come and gone, and the Awans have left their bones scattered broadcast in three continents. What other changes there may have been I know not. Perhaps Bahadur himself is dead; perhaps the last oorial has now been trapped in the ravines of Dhok Huriar. But fortunately oorial are now preserved in other large tracts of country; for it would be a thousand pities if they were to disappear from the hills and gullies that they have known so long.

What tales they might unfold-these same oorial-could they but tell us of the sights that their race has seen, of the men whom they have watched pass by along the great road that runs through their domain from Central Asia down to Hind. They would tell us of the days when their country was a satrapy, and Skylax and his Persian archers hunted them as "Bahram that great hunter" hunted the wild ass; of the days when Alexander's army, with its long pontoontrain of groaning country-carts, marched by to victory over Porus at the crossing of the Hydaspes. They would tell us of the ebb and flow that followed Alexander's death; of Seleucus chased from India by the Mauryas; of the coming of Demetrius and the Bactrian Greeks; and of Hermæus and

IN his Preface to 'The Interpreters' (London: Macmillan & Co.), A. E. tells us, arbitrarily, that he has laid his symposium in a future century, lest passion and transient circumstance should confuse the discussion. He does not make his purpose good. There is no hint of changed thought or unfamiliar sentiment to connect his argument with the future, and as we read his pages we discern, clearly enough, the disgrace of Sinn Fein through the mist of his idealism. Nor does his rhetoric, which he asks us to believe is detached from the late and present rebellion, persuade us to take a kindlier view of the basest and cruellest episode in modern history. No fine words can palliate the crimes of murder and arson; and as A. E. attempts in vain to separate himself from the outrages of yesterday and today, so neither his mysticism nor his philosophy softens to our hearts the tale of wrong done by his friends. We can see in what he calls his nation's violent assertion of its right to freedom a growing record of unexpiated and inexpiable crimes.

The symposium is held in the glamour of a prison and under the shadow of death. They who share in it are all

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to die on the morrow, except the Imperialist, who, having been thrust into the jail by mistake, talks excellent sense, and is therefore scouted by the others. This prisoner," says the Individualist of the Imperialist, "is not of us. He is for Empire, and is not worthy to die with us." For the rest, the talk is all of the wrongs of Ireland. "After centuries of frustrated effort," we are told by the Poet, "the nation, long dominated by an alien power which seemed immutable, had a resurrection. would join the great procession of States, of beings mightier than man created by man. would become like Egypt, Assyria, Greece, or Rome." We have heard all this before. If only the Irish had been allowed, they would have built a greater temple than the Parthenon. They would have composed a greater epic than the theÆneid.' Would they? Genius is never gainsaid. The man who is not "permitted' to sing songs has no songs to sing. Forms of government check not the spirit of art; and if genius be there, it matters not whether they, in whose breast it is alight, live under a democracy or serve an autocrat. Ireland has been only too free to express her