A SUMMER IN HIGH ASIA. 



appear to be a favourite breeding-ground of the 

 " Brahminy " duck (Casarca rutila), the bar- 

 headed goose (A user indicus), and innumerable 

 terns and gulls. This fact was noticed by Moor- 

 croft, and chronicled by him in his account of his 

 travels in these parts, now some seventy years ago. 

 The following day was a hard-working one, and 

 the account of it I had best take from my diary : 



" We started at 9.30 A.M. up the nalah behind camp. 

 It looked a fairly easy climb from below, but was in fact 

 one of the worst that I have attempted. Not very steep, 

 but all loose detritus, which gave way at every step. This 

 was the sort of mountain that, if you were to start half- 

 way up it to go to the top, for every step that you went up 

 you would slip down two, and eventually find yourself at 

 the bottom. However, the pony that I was riding (hardly 

 bigger than a Shetland) struggled bravely on, and after 

 two-and-a-half hours' climb under a hot sun, we found 

 ourselves at the summit. Before- us and on our left hand 

 was a large undulating plain, and on our right a ridge 

 of snow-covered hills. Here we saw nothing living save 

 two or three kyang with a foal. These did not seem to 

 pay us much attention, though they were doubtless 

 surprised at seeing human beings up here. An hour or 

 two later we made out, through the telescope, six whitish 

 specks, about two miles away on a ridge, and decided that 

 they were nyan. Starting off as fast as we could, we 

 crossed two intervening valleys and ridges and caught 

 sight of them again, but at the same time saw an animal 

 also going in their direction, which turned out to be a large 

 wolf ; he had got a long start of us, and, if he was bent on 

 stalking the same flock of nyan, small chance was there 

 for us. However, on seeing us, he slunk away to the 

 right, and not long afterwards, cautiously peering over a 

 ridge, we saw the six nyan immediately below us ; we 



