324 AN OVIS WITH BRONCHITIS. 



goats are tied up indiscriminately, and the milk is of 

 course mixed. 



From here we next day took a beat northward, over 

 the same description of ground, and soon discovered two 

 good Oves Ammon rams. Although they were not much 

 more than half a mile from us, we had to make a round 

 of what appeared to me several miles, to try and ap- 

 proach them and all on account of there being only 

 some fifty yards of the intervening ground to cross ex- 

 posed to their watchful eyes, which difficulty it was im- 

 possible otherwise to circumvent. And after all our 

 trouble, the animals seemed to have spirited themselves 

 away, for not a trace of them could we find on the hard 

 gravelly ground to indicate what direction they had taken. 

 It was now noon, and we had brought no food with us, 

 having that morning intended to return early to camp ; 

 but the two rams had upset this arrangement, so we sent 

 back our spare man to fetch something to eat, and con- 

 tinued our search for them. We had not gone far when 

 we espied a solitary ram, carrying fairly good horns. 

 After moving restlessly about for some time, he lay 

 down on an exposed eminence, where there was no pos- 

 sible way of approaching him nearer than about 400 yards. 

 We therefore lay down and waited, in the hope that he 

 might move on to more suitable ground for a stalk. He 

 seemed to be suffering from an attack of bronchitis, for, 

 as I watched him through the glass, I distinctly saw that 

 he was constantly coughing. After we had lain there 

 about two hours, exposed to the hard wind and baking 

 sun, waiting for the beast to rise, hunger began to assert 

 itself, which caused us to grow impatient. We therefore 

 decided to try and shorten the intervening distance by 

 creeping towards him in the open, under the delusion that 

 his seeming indisposition would perhaps make him reluc- 

 tant to bestir himself. Strange to say, he allowed us to 

 get well within 300 yards before he rose, which unusual 



