264 



CHAPTER XIX. 



SOUTH of the Indus, in the wild, almost uninhabited 

 districts of Hanle* and Bookshu, there are good localities for 

 Oves Ammon ; but as Changter refused to budge an inch 

 farther than the river, and we were unable to get any one 

 else who was able or willing to show us where to find them, 

 we resolved to make direct for the little hamlet of Hanle, 

 there to engage a guide who had been recommended to the 

 Major. Thence, after hunting up the goa, or Tibetan 

 gazelle, in the country beyond it, we proposed returning 

 with our new guide to again try our luck at the big sheep. 



Hanle, which we reached in three days, is the chief and 

 almost the only inhabited place in the extensive district of 

 the same name. 



To the south and east of Hanle, stretching away for some 

 twenty-five miles to the confines of the Chinese dominions, 

 lies a desolate expanse of rolling uplands and ravines with 

 an exceedingly limited amount of vegetation scattered over 

 them. These stony downs, as they may be termed, the 

 altitude of which ranges between 15,000 and 17,000 or 

 more feet, are a favourite haunt of the goa. 



Standing from 22 to 24 inches in height, on most 

 delicately formed limbs, the goa, or Tibetan gazelle (Procapra 

 picticaudata), is perhaps one of the most graceful little 

 creatures that exists. Its general colour is a pale brownish 

 fawn ; the head is light fawn, but in old bucks the hair on 

 the forehead and about the roots of the horns is white. On 



