i.S4 AFTER WILD SHEEP IN THE ALTAI 



Littledale taking the country I had tried the previous 

 day. It was a lovely morning". During the night 

 there had been a hard frost, and when I woke up I 

 found the water frozen in our tent. Unfortunately 

 the stove was of no avail, owing to the scarcity, or 

 rather to the quality, of the fuel, which consisted 

 of dried, horse or camel-dung, native tezek, the smoke 

 of which would have rendered our home entirely un- 

 inhabitable. I may mention that the poor cook, 

 Vassili, was in despair for the same reason, our roast 

 kotchkor usually bearing a strong smell of tezek smoke. 

 It took us a long time to reach the entrance to the 

 valley, our ponies stumbling over the marshy table- 

 land we had to cross, and only found ourselves 

 among the well-known buttresses at 6.30. Taba had 

 been conceded to me for the day, Littledale having 

 taken out with him a hunter named Lepet, who, 

 though he was subject to eye-soreness, yet could see 

 as well as any man on our planet, and discover game 

 where telescopes seemed useless. I left my "second- 

 horse man" in charge of the ponies, and started up 

 the nullah with Taba. We followed the bed of the 

 stream for some time, examining carefully the slopes 

 on either side, and stopping now and then to spy the 

 lateral ravines, at the bottom of which the wily old 

 rams enjoy their siesta, but there were no signs of 



