90 CHINESE TURKESTAN 



owing to the steepness of the ground and the 

 chance of starting him rolling again. Laden with 

 this and the skin, we returned to our ponies, and so 

 triumphantly down and across a mile or so of flat to 

 camp, on the other side of the Akjas River. The 

 tape gave the horns 52 inches, a really fine head. 

 On the way down I saw a lot more ibex further up 

 the main valley. 



The main valley of Akjas, called Big Akjas, to 

 distinguish it from the side valleys, has a length of 

 about sixty miles, and we struck into it some twenty 

 or twenty-five miles from the foot of the hills. The 

 western side above where we came in is covered 

 with bushes, and in some places near the bottom 

 with pine trees, the heavy forest being further down. 

 The predominating growth on this hillside is a hor- 

 rible thorny thing like a stick covered with spines, 

 which I take to be the " devil's club " of evil fame ; 

 but if it isn't, it well deserves to be called so. The 

 ibex ground in Big Akjas is all on the east side, 

 which runs up from the river in a series of grassy 

 slopes broken by cliffs and intersected by innumer- 

 able small side-valleys of various sizes and depths. 

 Above the grass the ground is steeper, broken and 

 covered with rocks, and well up among these the 

 ibex usually lie down for the day ; but in the early 

 morning they are nearly always on the grass just 

 below the rocks, and can be easily seen from below 

 with and, indeed, often without a telescope. To 



