PROMISE OF GOOD SPORT 301 



closure. Having accepted a Bear skin which the 

 Zaissan had kindly offered me, with his good wishes, 

 we bade him farewell on the following day, and 

 hurried back down the Oulagan in search of wilder 

 country. Our days being now numbered, we were 

 disappointed at having lost our time up the Oulagan 

 River, though a visit to the Zaissan was the least we 

 could do, if only to thank him for the civility he had 

 continually shown us. Orders had been given by 

 him to our former demitcha (Jacob) to meet us on 

 our way, as we passed his yourt, and after a fifteen- 

 mile march, as we were pitching our camp at the 

 junction of the Kara Kodjur stream with the Bash- 

 kaous, we were met by this old acquaintance of ours, 

 who was now in his own country, and seemed full of 

 pluck, and quite another man in comparison with 

 what we had seen of him in Mongolia. He gave us 

 a brilliant description of the country at the head of 

 the Kara Kodjur River, and told us that it abounded 

 not only in Maral and Roe (in Kalmuk the former is 

 known as Sougoun, the latter as Ic/ik), but also in 

 Moose, which he called Boulan. This made us most 

 eager to continue our journey towards this Eldorado, 

 though from experience we felt rather mistrustful of 

 Kalmuk statements. Jacob had provided us with a 

 couple of native hunters, whom we met on the follow- 



