A Plethora of Ibex. 



laborious in fact, that a young Kalmuk who was with me that day 

 could not tackle it, but awaited my return on the grass slopes, 

 evidently preferring to cling to life and not risk a sudden and 

 unceremonious tumble into eternity. The herd, however, eluded 

 us as only ibex can, so I gave it up, and then started along the 

 top edge of the grass slopes in the hope of seeing others below. 



I sent the other Kalmuk back to camp with orders to have 

 everything moved further down the valley to the entrance of a 

 narrow ravine, at the upper end of which I had seen ibex on a 

 previous occasion. Numgoon and I decided to work along and 

 down to this point, a heavy day's work, but as the ponies were to 

 meet us at the bottom of the hill it would not be necessary to 

 walk the entire way back to camp. 



Towards noon we were well up amongst the higher rocks and 

 moving round to cross on to the next ridge by following the head 

 of the ravine. Whilst doing so we saw madeens appearing out of a 

 rise in the ground some distance below us, so many there were and 

 all in Indian file that I thought they would never cease coming 

 out. At last some big bucks appeared, at any rate they looked well 

 over 50 inches, two of them having a most extraordinary curve, 

 even Numgoon saying they were very fine. We therefore doubled 

 up to some rocks commanding their line of advance, and awaited 

 the advent of the big bucks. During the time we had been 

 running to take up this position we were under the observation 

 of a few madeens, and they, watchful as ever, sounded that shrill 

 whistle of alarm I had learnt to know so well. 



I do not think I had ever seen so many ibex before, and as 

 they kept trooping past some 150 yards away I could judge the 

 big ones. At last the two biggest appeared, the leading one being 

 on the run. I, however, had a shot at him and missed. A Httle 

 way behind him came number two, and he very kindly stopped 

 to admire us, so I opened fire which caused him to stumble 

 heavily but not sufficiently hard hit to bring him down. He 

 then left the herd, which had made off helter-skelter ahead, and 

 pursued a course at right angles, being unable to tackle the 



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