An Elusive Quarry. 



desert tracts, and an exceedingly difficult animal it is to approach, 

 being in fact the wariest creature I have ever seen. Captain 

 Shuttleworth kindly made arrangements for me to go to a village 

 called Opal, some thirty-five miles west of Kashgar, reputed to 

 be good gazelle ground, and despatched men to report on the 

 probability of my encountering the coveted game. I sent off 

 the kit on June 20th, riding out myself the following day and 

 found my tent pitched in a garden belonging to the local " Qazi " 

 or Judge. 



Two shikaris appeared in the evening and reported many 

 "jeran," as the gazelle are locally known, on the stony 

 plains to the west, but as the natives' " many " usually resolves 

 itself into an infinitesimal quantity, I was not hopeful of sighting 

 any quantity by the time I reached the ground on the morrow. 



I started at half- past three in the morning for the plains to the 

 west and north-west of Opal. The country was quite open, 

 merely a sand-covered waste, so that stalking was no easy task. 

 I saw three gazelle during the day, but could not work suffi- 

 ciently close for a shot. They kept out of range in the most 

 tantalising manner, always too far away to chance an attempt 

 at them with any hope of scoring a hit. Though much akin to 

 the Indian chinkara, or gazelle of the plains, they could easily give 

 them points in the art of evading the shikari. Despite my most 

 persistent efforts to stalk them I was not successful, so abandoned 

 operations late in the day and returned to camp. I could only- 

 spare two more days in their pursuit, with unfortunately the 

 same barren result, so returned to Kashgar, as much yet remained 

 to be done ere the Thian Shan, many hundreds of miles to the 

 north-west across the illimitable plains of Chinese Turkistan, 

 could be reached. 



I stayed a few more days in Kashgar, and then on July 2nd 

 sent off my kit, in charge of Giyani and two new servants engaged 

 in place of Piroz Zaman and Nadir, who now returned to their homes 

 at Tashkurghan and Hunza respectively. The parting with these 

 two men I never ceased to regret, for they had served me well, 



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