The Bujnurd Sheep 1 8 1 



certainly a picturesque band, these moss-troopers 

 of the marches, excellently mounted, and sitting 

 their horses like men born in the saddle. They 

 all came on with me to the shooting-ground, but 

 being far from any village, the difficulty of sup- 

 plies soon induced me to dispense with them. 



At Zard I picked up two shikaris, and the 

 first task, and not an easy one, was to make them 

 understand that any one so exalted as a British 

 Consul-General really intended to climb the hills 

 on his own feet, or, indeed, was capable of doing 

 so. The upper class Persian has no idea of any 

 sport that cannot be managed from the saddle. 

 In Bujnurd the chief and his mounted men love 

 a gallop after pig, at which they rain bullets in 

 the manner so well depicted by Yate. 1 The chief 

 told me that he and his brother could gallop up 

 to two pigeons, and as they rose, without draw- 

 ing rein, he would shoot one and his brother 

 the other. I once saw them essay this very feat 

 unsuccessfully. 



None of the people I had so far met in Bujnurd 

 and on the road had been able to tell me any- 

 thing about the deer, and, most important of all, 

 when the roaring season began or ended. I had 

 assumed that, like Kashmir, the season would con- 

 tinue well on into October, but on my arrival at 



1 'Khorasan and Seistan.' 



