CHAPTER VI. 



SPORT IN THE TEKKES : WAPITI 



IT rained heavily during the one night we stopped 

 at Shatta, but cleared up a bit in the morning, so 

 on September i4th we started for Agoyas, also 

 known as Akjas, and arrived there after a march 

 which turned out to be fully twenty-five miles. 

 The path skirts the foot of the hills, the slopes of 

 which are largely covered with pine forests, the 

 going being good and the plain here nearly level. 

 Many of the smaller streams from the hills either 

 dry up on the plain or run underground, and so do 

 not reach the main river, at least not visibly, 

 though some of them reappear on the surface at 

 intervals as springs. As usual, we halted for break- 

 fast on the way, and while collecting firewood from 

 a few trees near a stream, we found an old horn 

 which set a much-vexed question at rest, as, though 

 it was much broken, the size of the fourth tine, or 

 rather the stump of it, proved conclusively that it 

 had belonged to a wapiti. There were a fair lot of 

 partridges and a few quail, the latter mostly single 

 or in pairs, and they seemed to us bigger than the 



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