156 CHINESE TURKESTAN 



bazaar, fort, and an amban in charge. The road 

 to Tchugutchak branches off here. 



Another march over a like class of country took 

 us to Ketang, and here, being up on the roof of the 

 serai in the evening, we saw a lot of animals in the 

 far distance. Through the telescope they appeared 

 to be kulon a sort of wild donkey (in Ladaki, &<*#); 

 so we caught a fairly intelligent native, and pro- 

 ceeded to interrogate him on the subject. He said 

 they were kulon, and that there used to be immense 

 numbers of them, but that they had been very 

 heavily shot off in order to save the grazing for 

 domestic animals. He also said that up Tchugut- 

 chak way there were wild horses as well Equus 

 prejvalsky, I suppose. 



The following day we decided to have a try after 

 these kulon, just to make sure what they were ; 

 but as we had a twenty-three miles march to go, we 

 had not much time, and did not succeed in getting 

 one, though I got near enough to be pretty sure of 

 their identity as kulon. It is odd that they should 

 be so plentiful here and nowhere else on the road. 

 We also saw a few jeron, while the down-like 

 country nearer the hills looks as though it ought to 

 hold sheep. 



The jungle begins again about three miles from 

 Yengsihei, and lasts to within some twenty miles 

 of Manas, for which twenty miles the country is 

 rather swampy. To the north there are large tracts 



