176 CHINESE TURKESTAN 



Wild sheep, I suppose of the Jom variety, 

 certainly inhabit these hills in places, as two or 

 three times we saw their heads, as well as some fine 

 specimens of domestic sheep horns, ornamenting 

 mazars by the roadside, and the people certainly 

 would not take the trouble to bring them far ; also 

 we twice saw gazelle from the road, but they were 

 too far off to be quite sure about. I thought that 

 they were the Yarkand variety, not hwang yang. 



From here to Aksu is only eight days' journey, so 

 we were really close to the Tekkes again ; in fact, 

 in clear weather one could probably see the main 

 dividing range from here, and we wished we had 

 known what the Urumtsi country was like, as 

 instead of marching all that weary distance, we 

 might have done a month or two's ibex-shooting 

 about Akjas, and then have returned the way we 

 came. However, it was no use thinking of that 

 now, somebody has to go first ; but we arrived at 

 the conclusion that pioneering new shooting-grounds 

 does not always pay. 



