so A SHOOTING TRIP TO KAMCHATKA 



joviality never ceased to amuse the company. He gave 

 Mr. Littledale and myself the most promising- account 

 of sport in the Amur regions, where he had spent 

 a great part of his official career. In his opinion 

 there was no better hunting-ground than the Khingan 

 district. 



The Khingan is a range of low timber-covered 

 hills, through which Hows the river Amur some two 

 hundred miles beyond the town of Blagovestchensk ; 

 its northern part belongs to Russia, while the southern 

 portion is in Chinese territory. He strongly ad- 

 vised us to visit that country, where he said " izubra" 

 stags were plentiful, besides tiger, roedeer, musk-deer 

 (native /ada/'j^a), wild sheep (?), and to our profound 

 astonishment, aurochs. The two last-named species 

 struck us as being so imlikely to be found in these 

 regions, that we naturally expressed our surprise at 

 such unexpected tidings, upon which M. Hedenstrom, 

 whom we thenceforth called " Daddy " (short for 

 Hakodadi). volunteered to wire to " the king of 

 hunters," a Cossack named Lalitin, to meet us at 

 Hlagovestchensk and contu^m his somewhat startling 

 statements. P)Oth Littledale and I assented to his 

 proposal and the telegram was desj)atched forthwith. 



After having crossed the (Jb, whence we had branched 

 off three years before on our way to the .Altai and 



