102 CHINESE TURKESTAN 



told of the day's misadventures, proceeded to curse 

 his brother Kalmak in a way which reduced that 

 individual to complete silence and almost to tears ; 

 of course I don't know what he said, but it sounded 

 most satisfactory, and did me quite a lot of good to 

 listen to. 



In the morning I had found an old horn, so big 

 that I should much have liked to measure it properly, 

 but as I returned to camp a different way I did not 

 get it. I only measured it roughly with my hand, 

 but am sure that it was nearly 60 inches in length ; 

 the present record is a horn of 56 inches, from the 

 Tagdumbash Pamir. 



Next morning we started down the valley again, 

 and I went off with Durji and one of our own men on 

 what turned out to be a very long day of fruitless 

 labour. Riding along down the river bank, we 

 pretty soon saw ibex above, and as the telescope 

 showed some of them to be big, we left the ponies 

 and went up the hill. While we were engaged in 

 trying to stalk the herd seen from below, four 

 very fine bucks made their appearance on a small 

 plateau of grass much further up, so we changed 

 our plans and went for them instead. To get to 

 them we had to go a long way down and round, as 

 a ravine of almost sheer cliff stopped a direct 

 advance ; but no matter, they looked worth some 

 hard work, and we went. Unfortunately, the wind 

 was very shifty, and a puff of it probably spoilt the 



