THE HUNT CONTINUED 221 



five hundred of them put neatly together would make a 

 dainty rug. 



The dong's head gave Yakub several days' congenial 

 work, and he set about it without delay. The first thing 

 we did was to weigh the head : it was exactly 100 lbs. 

 The horns were 34 inches in length. The nyan head I 

 shot in Gograng weighed 23 lbs. I found two large 

 flocks of sheep at Kitini ; one had just brought salt from 

 the Mangtza lake in Tibet, and the other was bound for 

 the same place. Their road lay through Kiamgo-Traggar 

 valley, where my future dong-shooting would be, so I 

 arranged with the shepherds that they were to keep a 

 day's march behind me as far as Lanak-la, and returned 

 to Trak-karpo in the evening. 



Next morning we left the Keipsang by another Konka-la 

 (a slight rise only), and entered Kiamgo-Traggar at once. 

 A small white rock is in the centre of the opening, named 

 also " Trak-karpo " ; the waters of several valleys meet at 

 this white stone, and run united to the main stream. The 

 march from Keipsang into Kiamgo-Traggar was a most 

 trying one — a long series of stony slopes and valleys, one 

 after the other ; not a blade of grass, not a drop of water, 

 was visible anywhere. In one of these stony depressions 

 Paljour spied two birds with a young one ; we went after 

 them, and Paljour picked up the youngster, lying like a 

 stone on the ground. It was about the size of a common 

 grey partridge, and was exactly like that bird in colour, 

 but the legs were short and feathered like those of a 

 grouse. I carried it some distance in my hand after the 

 old birds, which kept moving off a few yards before me — the 

 hen pretending to be disabled, and fluttering along just as 

 I have seen pheasants in the Himalayas, when trying to 

 distract attention from their helpless broods. The old 

 birds were marked like the pintail grouse of the plains, 



