2io By Mountain, Lake^ and Plain 



scarps of white rock, giving a touch of savage- 

 ness to a scene that otherwise might have been 

 oppressive. It seemed to me it was some such 

 scene as this that Shelley had in his mind when 

 he wrote those lines 



"... the streams which clove those mountains vast, 



Around their inland islets and amid the panther-peopled forests" 



This was the stag ground, and from the shoot- 

 ing point of view it looked anything but promis- 

 ing. I spent the day examining the few open 

 spaces that could be seen. Once some dark 

 animals came out, which the glasses showed to 

 be wild pig, a great family of them. No deer 

 showed ; but as the evening chill came into the 

 air, from somewhere far away in the sea of green 

 came a low, long-drawn sound, repeated at inter- 

 vals. It was the first time I heard the roar of 

 the maral stag. 



After waiting till it was dark, we made our 

 way down the steep hill to where our camp nestled 

 in deep grass near a spring called Karatikan. 

 Here we abode, and an excellent centre it made, 

 as on the east we had the open sheep ground, 

 while westward there was the forest. 



Our hopes of sport were rather damped by 

 the knowledge that in our near proximity was a 

 camp of Turkoman hunters, a fact that caused the 



