236 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



plan for the same purpose : instead of goat skins I 

 employ in the same way a couple of air-beds, which 

 are easier to carry than the former, and very comfort- 

 able to sleep on. With these you can make a raft 

 capable of floating a considerable cargo. 



We arrived towards the end of August at our 

 destination, the Taghdumbash Pamir, where we 

 intended to begin our hunt for poli. As this place 

 has been visited nearly every year since then by some 

 sportsmen, and has been described so often by abler 

 pens than mine, it would be useless for me to repeat. 

 Having met the beg or chief of the district where 

 the Taghdumbash joins the Serikul, and procured 

 Kirghiz hunters (such as they are) from him, we 

 proceeded up the valley to a place called Kuktoorok, 

 which our shikaries told us was a good camp ground 

 to hunt from. At last I had reached the goal of my 

 ambition. I was amongst O. po/i, and the next day I 

 might shoot one. This was not to be, however, for 

 the next day was an impossible one snow all night 

 and a thick fog in the morning, which lasted up to 

 mid-day, too late to hunt that morning. In the 

 evening we took a turn up the hill, but I saw nothing 

 except some females. 



The next morning I was up and away before 

 daybreak. It was a grand morning : about four 

 inches of snow on the ground, still and cold. I very 

 soon scrambled up the slope of the steppe which 

 occurs all round the base of the mountains in this 

 region, and had hardly got my eye over the top when 

 I spotted a herd. It looked promising. I had got my 



