A hu- Gardani 119 



was near his thousand but had not kept accurate 

 count. One day he had shot a beast and was 

 running up to it when in its place he saw a black 

 animal. "No, it was not a wolf, nor leopard, 

 nor hyena, all these he knew it was no animal 

 known to man perhaps it was a sim." Another 

 shikari told me that when the thousandth animal 

 had been killed, it turned into a gibbering human 

 form. That must, I think, be very disagreeable, 

 perhaps worse than one's wife bursting into tears ! 

 Besides gazelle, the plains of which I have 

 been speaking, and in fact most of the remoter 

 deserts of Eastern Persia, are roamed over by wild 

 asses. Unfortunately, since the days of Bahram 

 ghori, celebrated through the East as the hunter 

 of wild asses (ghor), these animals have always 

 been remorselessly persecuted for the sake of 

 their meat and hides, usually by the ignoble 

 plan of sitting up over water, with the consequence 

 that they are now scarce. The royal sportsman 

 of old, I imagine, resorted to no " low down " 

 devices of this sort, but chased his quarry over 

 the plain with javelin or bow and arrow. 1 But 



" Bahram, that great hunter the wild ass 

 Stamps o'er his head, and he lies fast asleep." 



1 There is a story that one day Bahram, in the presence of a 

 favourite mistress, transfixed two wild asses with one arrow. 

 Instead of praising the shot, her only remark was, "Practice 



