376 



BIG GAME SHOOTING 



been taken violently sick and lay there unable to move. I had no 

 brandy to give him, and not even a coat to wrap him up in, for 

 we had left our sheepskins at the bottom of the hill. However, 

 I rubbed his hands vigorously, and after a time he recovered 

 sufficiently to descend leaning upon my shoulder. I believe it 

 was nothing but the height which affected him, and, extra- 

 ordinary as it may seem, two other Kirghiz who regularly spent 

 four or five months in every year on the great Alai, as their fore- 

 fathers had done before them, had been completely knocked up a 

 few weeks before this by the two or three thousand feet additional 

 elevation at which they found themselves with me, and had 

 been compelled to leave the Pamir. They are a careless happy- 

 go-lucky race, these Kirghiz, easy to offend as children, but as 

 ready to ' make it up,' and quite harmless if well handled. On 

 life they set but little store ; but the words of one old chief as 

 he handled my rifle are still in my ears. ' Ah,' he said, with a 

 sigh, 'and even the man who made that gun must die.' 



j 



