Read a few pages, seems a delightful book to read. Have to save it for another day though

... What a curious book - the clearly Anglophile Count Von Koenigsmarck's descriptions of the cheerful bonhomie between British and German military officers c.1905 have a certain ( in retrospect) bitterly ironic quality to them ... Only a few years later, these same officers would no doubt have been at war with one another... ...I'm not entirely convinced that the Count's views on economic development on the sub-continent will sit comfortably with modern, Indian 'nationalist' perceptions either - see page 29 : "It is to Great Britain's spirit of enterprise that all praise is due ... for with all of their might and main, by all the means possible of Oriental cunning and obstinacy, did the Kings of this district and these mountains set thenselves against Western progress." etc & etc Still, the Count’s descriptions of the Kashmiri landscape and its peoples look as if they would make for interesting reading – as do his descriptions of the dynamics of hunting for the elusive ‘Markhor’ – which, like the Ibex, lives in impossibly difficult, mountainous terrain by human standards, hence the attraction in their hunting. The name markhor is, so I understand, a compound of two Persian words meaning ‘snake-eater’. Perhaps we might treat the idea that a wild goat would dine upon a snake with a certain amount of scepticism – but – instances of just this kind have been recorded, with surprising results – as Major-General J.G. Elliot reveals in the following account: “When a markhor encounters a snake he kills it by stamping upon its head, and then devours it. The poison of the snake causes a cyst to grow in the stomach known as the ‘zahr morah’ stone. This stone when applied to a snake bite wound absorbs the poison from the blood stream and the cure of the patient is rapid. I have firsthand experience of this. I obtained one such stone from a Gujar shepherd in Dir which came fresh from a markhor which he had been commissioned to shoot for me. When I enquired if he had found the stone he took it from his cap and sold it to me for twenty rupees. Some time afterwards I was at a dinner party in Peshawar in a house where I was staying. A servant came in to say that a golden retriever of mine in a shed at the stable had been bitten by a snake. With my friend, Colonel Sir Hissam-ud-Din, a well known shikari, I went to investigate. We found the dog in great pain. I went to my room and brought a razor and the snake stone from my stud box. After shaving the neck we saw the two fang marks. Making a small nick between them I clapped on the stone and held it in place. The stone stuck to the wound and soon began to draw it with a slight bubbling. In half an hour the dog whose eyes had been glassy was relived from the pain of the poison and soon recovered from the effects of the snake bite. In the dust of the floor we could see the trail of the snake leading to a hole in the wall.” - From H.L. Haugton’s ‘Sport and Folklore in the Himalayas’ (1913) quoted by Maj-Gen J.G. Elliot ‘Field Sports in India’ (1973) p.162

Thank you Julian Craig...for the fascinating account of the Bezoar stone. Incidentally...it seemed to have many uses and was also a meant as a certain antidote for snake bites. Will post a picture of this stone...albeit an artificial one.

Tales of bezoar date back to centuries and they used to be a regular item of trade from India and Persia to Europe, as recounted by one Doctor Fryer in an account written circa 1672-1681. Fryer lived and worked for several years in Bombay, and left a detailed record of the gem trade which passed through the English Bombay warehouses. Bezoar was counted as a precious stone . Fryer describes bezoar carefully. Bezoar-stones, he said, were originally obtained in Persia, found in the bellies of the Persian mountain-goats. The stones rose from some item in the diet of these goats and certain districts were known for breeding good bezoar-stones; the stones could appear in the stomachs of domestic animals as well as wild ones--in sheep and goats, cattle and apes. The locals in good bezoar areas could tell which animals had bezoar-stones; the gait of the afflicted animals was the clue. The bezoars gotten from apes, they said, were the most valuable of all. True bezoar, Fryer writes, will show purple if rubbed with lime. It may be pared in layers like pearl, until a straw-like substance is discovered in its heart; fake bezoars lack this straw-like matter. There are several other ways to test the stone. One rubs it hard on a stone of chalk; if it leaves an olive-stain, it is real bezoar. Or touch it to a red-hot iron, and if it fries like resin or wax, it is a counterfeit. Put it into clear water; if small white bubbles rise, the stone is true, and if none it is doubtful. Or rub it on wood-ashes held in the palm of the hand; a real bezoar will leave a faint green color behind. And a true bezoar which is soaked in water should not shrink or change color; a fake stone will.