Hunting at High Altitudes 



At last they moved down under a ledge, 

 and we crawled down until I could see one lying 

 just below me a couple of hundred yards away. I 

 was keen to get him, as well as to let off for the 

 first time my new double 360 Fraser, so waiting 

 until I had my wind we were over 13,000 feet 

 up I fired, giving him the second barrel as he 

 struggled to his feet, knocking him over the ledge. 

 Letting the other two go, as I saw they were much 

 smaller, we slid down the loose shale to find my 

 first ibex lying dead in a little meadow of wild 

 flowers not a large head, for the Thian Shan, but 

 forty-six inches with heavy horns very good to 

 begin with. 



Another successful day after ibex occurred soon 

 after this on a river called the Musteban, which 

 flowed into the Kok-Su. I had left the main camp 

 for a few days' shooting and had reached our 

 camping ground near sunset; while the supper was 

 cooking Khudai Kildi and I were hard at work, I 

 with the telescope, he with the glasses, spying the 

 slopes high above us. We were soon rewarded by 

 seeing several hundred ibex, among and above 

 which was a large herd of males. Early next 

 morning we started on our ponies with a man to 

 hold the horses when the climbing began, as well 

 as to carry the lunch and a thermos bottle of cocoa. 



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