302 HERDS OF GAME IN THIBET. 



them produced by the country. How these animals live 

 through the arctic cold of the long winter, when the countrv 

 is covered with snow, hiding the little withered grass that 

 remains, appears a mystery." * 



Further accounts by other witnesses, respecting the 

 mighty herds of game seen in Thibet, had already 

 been furnished by the Pundit Nain Singh, and others. 

 In one of these cases the plateau was seen covered 

 " with countless herds of antelope," one of which " over 

 2000 in number " is described as resembling " a regi- 

 ment of soldiers, with their horns glistening in the sun 

 like bayonets. " f So also Dr. (now Sir) Joseph Hooker, 

 in his " Himalayan Journals, " describing the magnifi- 

 cence of the scenery, and the quantity of game seen 

 near Lake Cholamo, 17,000 feet above sea-level, men- 

 tions that " the abundance of animal life was won- 

 derful, " and that " large antelopes and deer, and 

 many slate-coloured hares " were seen feeding on some 

 short grass near the lake, on whose surface a flock 

 of common English teal were swimming, while an 

 enormous quantity of wildfowl of many descriptions 

 make their nesting grounds in these great Thibetan 

 wilds. " 



These facts therefore are well attested; and certainly 

 these assemblages of great herds of game animals, in 

 what all descriptions concur in representing as being, 

 as a rule, singularly barren stony wastes, is a most 



* Jotirney Across Thibet, by Captain Hamilton Bower, I7th Bengal 

 Cavalry, 1894, p. 285. 



j See Account of the Pundit Nain Singh's Journey in Great Thibet, 

 in a paper read by Captain H. Trotter, R.E., before the R.G.S., in 

 Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, Vol. xlvii, pp. 104 5. 



See Himalayan Journals, by Sir Joseph D. Hooker, 1834, Vol. 

 ii., pp. 164175. 



