It was dusk in the lowlands of the mighty Himalayas and a strong wind was scouring the icy, late-winter landscape when Dr. Uzman T. Shakhrisyabz of the Simian Sciences Department of West Khunjerab University uneasily stepped out of his plush, thirteen-room tent and gazed across the rocky slopes nearby.  His attention had been attracted by a strange, unearthly moaning, and setting aside his dinner of kooftah and brown lentil chutney, he turned off the recording of Billy Panchatantra and the Hindu Hoppers, put on his soft yak-fur slippers, and called for his boy to open the tent flap. The diminutive Tajik, Ismail Kudara, who had been in his employ ever since his native village of Ghobi was buried by a landslide, leaped to respond to his master's direction, only slightly tearing his woolen pantaloons on the sharp corner of a tandoori oven that had been left for some reason in the middle of the tent.
     The sounds were like nothing Dr. Shakhrisyabz had ever heard before, either in the lowlands of the Himalayas or anywhere else for that matter.  It reminded him somewhat of the subtle melodies of the kasht tarang, an old percussive musical instrument lacking membranes, or possibly the disjointed murmering of the mukhavina, a member of the class of instruments characterized by the use of air to excite the various resonators. The boy Ismail suggested that it was more like the sibilant whispering of the thanthi panai or even the harsh stuttering of the rudra vina, a most difficult instrument played by the plucking of its forty-seven strings.  Dr. U. Shakhrisyabz took extreme umbrage to this theory and boxed the boy repeatedly about the ears.  The sun was just setting behind the massive peak of Mt. Mayuri when the world-famous primatologist glimpsed a quick movement up on the scree. He immediately screwed his monocle into his one good eye, and was amazed to see a large abominable primate, brownish in color or possibly a deep rust, and somewhere between 3' and 7' tall, suddenly stop and turn to look at him. He gaped in astonishment, because he knew, as no doubt did the boy Ismail with the ringing ears, that abominable primates had never been observed below about 6529' before, and that since their camp was situated at a lowly 6508', he was perhaps making primatological history. He barked at Ismail to run into the tent and fetch him his new camera, a Vishnu-227 Deluxe, but before the hapless youngster could retrieve the item in question, the abominable primate had disappeared, leaving only the ragged sounds of its mournful cry fading in the dry north Indian air.
     Distraught at the failure to document his more than astounding observation, Dr. Shakhrisyabz was forced to retire to his tent with a cup of harsh black Kanpuri tea, and has not been seen since. The New Primate Nooz is planning to send its Reporter from the Field Eric Scotmeister Fleiglehaus very soon to the subcontinent to track him down and get his story at firsthand. Meanwhile, we can refer our readers to two useful articles by Dr. Shakhrisyabz, "My First Encounter with an Abominable Primate,"  [Bombay Monkey Club Notes, 1986, 153(2):55-77], and "Abominable Primates of the Indian Subcontinent and Surrounding Regions,"  [Kashmir Journal of Primatological Oddities, 1990, 19(4):79-91].