Hunting in Many Lands 



ern Tibet, I killed six or eight pretty good 

 sized brown bears; but a man would have to 

 be blind not to be able to hit one at twenty- 

 five or thirty yards, and it is always possible 

 to get as near them as that, even in the open 

 country which they frequent. They have ap- 

 parently no dens, but live in the holes in the 

 ground which they dig to get the little mar- 

 mots on which they feed. These bears are, 

 however, very fleet, as I once or twice found 

 out when trying to ride them down on horse- 

 back, and when they nearly proved a match 

 for the best ponies I had. The natives stand 

 in great dread of them, and will never attack 

 them except when there are three or four men 

 together, when they approach them from dif- 

 ferent directions and open fire all at the same 

 time. They say these bears are man-eaters, 

 and even when the men with me saw them 

 lying dead they showed great repugnance to 

 touch the body, or even to come near them; 

 though they might have made eight or ten 

 dollars by splitting them open and removing 

 the gall — a highly-prized medicine among the 

 Chinese, who also find a place for bears' paws 

 in their pharmacopoeia. 



On the whole, though Korea, Mongolia and 

 276 



