432 A TARTAR HAMLET. 



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 dis- 

 tance by creeping towards him in the open, under the delu- 

 sion that his seeming indisposition would perhaps make him 

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

 get well within 300 yards before he rose, which unusual negli- 

 gence on the part of an Ovis Ammon we could only attribute 

 to his ailment. He moved off very slowly, so I hastened his 

 departure with a bullet ; and as on examining the place where 

 I had shot at him we found a good-sized tuft of his hair on 

 the ground, I must have shaved him pretty closely. We now 

 made for the spot where Puddoo had arranged for the provin- 

 der to be brought to, and after appeasing our hunger, pro- 

 ceeded to try fresh ground. No game was found on it, how- 

 ever, which was not surprising, as we detected poachers there 

 in the shape of two grey wolves (here called " chanko "), one 

 of which I sent limping away with a broken hind -leg. By 

 the time we got back to camp in the evening, I felt as if I 

 had done perhaps a little more than enough work since early 

 morning. 



Our camp was moved next day to Dongpu, the first inhab- 

 ited place we had met with since leaving the village of Niti. 

 A Tartar hamlet and small gompa (monastery) the latter 

 coloured red perched along the crest of a pale-yellowish 

 low ridge, of which the crumbling half -dilapidated houses 

 seemed to form a part. A rapid turbid stream of melted 

 snow (the Sakchu) wound along below it, and some terraced 

 fields in the vicinity looked so arid and stony that it was 

 difficult to conceive how anything could ever grow there. 

 The village looked utterly dreary and forsaken, a few de- 

 crepit old men and wizened hags being its sole inhabitants, 

 the rest being absent in their camps, grazing their flocks in 

 the wilderness around. Altogether, the place and its sur- 

 roundings looked so dreamy and unreal in the quivering re- 



