I 



304 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



all conscience, but even markhor are less heartbreaking to deal | 

 with than shapoo. | 



The writer once met a real typical shapoo, a true son of \ 

 Belial. The beast started out of a ravine, galloped as hard as he 

 could lay legs to the ground for four hundred yards, and then 

 calmly lay down to think. After about a quarter of an hour 

 he rose, strolled leisurely over a ridge, and then cantered off to 

 some rocks about three-quarters of a mile away, where he layl; 

 down again. This necessitated a climb to the top of the hill,f j 

 whence, wind and cover being perfect, the stalk would be easy \ 

 enough. He remained there just long enough to enable the I 

 pursuer to begin the easy part of the stalk, when up he got, 

 cantered gracefully back across the valley, and lay down on the : '■ 

 opposite hill, in another very tempting position. This move \ 

 entailed a detour, so as to cross the valley out of sight, and \ 

 another climb up the far hill ; half an hour was spent in reaching ; 

 the desired spot : but though from there a magnificent view 1 

 could be had of all the country round, there was not a sign of \ 

 the shapoo, and the ground was too dry to show his tracks- ; 

 Verily, shapoo are only shot when they give themselves away, j 



Shapoo are very tough beasts. The writer once regularly *: 

 raked a ram galloping straight from him at thirty yards ; the 1 

 bullet, from a '500 Express, caught him on the rump, and the ' 

 base of it was afterwards cut out in front of the liver ; yet the ' 

 ram ran some two hundred and fifty yards, stopped for about a 

 minute to look round, and then started off again at a gallop, .i 

 but after going a hundred yards fell over dead. The writer 

 remembers no other instance of an animal stopping to gaze in its i 

 death gallop. , 



XXXIV. OO-^lhl. {Ovis cycloceros) i 



Generally ' Oorial,'' ' Kuch^'' in the Suleiman range if 



This sheep is found in the Salt range near Jhelum, and where- t 

 ever there are any suitable hills on both banks of the Indus from > 

 about Peshawur down to Beloochistan, where it is replaced by 

 the next variety, Ovis Blanfordi. The ram has a long ruff of I 



