238 AMONG THE IBEX OF TURKESTAN. 



git, can't help," which being interpreted meant, if we 

 got one, well and good ; if we did not, we had at any 

 rate done our best, and there was no help for it.^ 



I started early on the morning of the 14th, while the 

 thermometer still stood 6° below freezing-point; but 

 the cold soon changed to heat, for the sun shone 

 fiercely from a cloudless sky, and the mercury had 

 mounted to 112° (Fahr.) before I returned to camp. 

 We rode along as usual, Nurah in front, myself and 

 another Kalmuk behind, — all clinging to our stout 

 little ponies as they struggled up the steep mountain- 

 sides, or scrambled down to the depths of some inter- 

 venino- ravine, our attention constantly occupied in 

 preventing our saddles from slipping oif over our 

 ponies' tails, or precipitating us unawares over their 

 heads. 



Suddenly Nurah slid off his pony as if he had been 

 shot, and I pulled mine on to his haunches in an 

 endeavour to do likewise. The ponies were dragged 

 down into a hollow, and Nurah pointed excitedly 

 down into a corrie in front of us, whispering " Tekke " 

 (ibex). Sure enough we had stumbled almost on top 

 of a small herd of males, lying quietly on a steep 

 sloping hillside before us. It was all very sudden and 

 unexpected, but there we were, actually within shot 

 of them ; and a few seconds later an ibex was lying 

 dead to the first shot, and another was moving slowly 

 ofP, evidently damaged somewhere by the second. I 

 ran to intercept him farther up the ravine, and ten 



1 For the benefit of the uninitiated I must point out that whereas there 

 would in reality appear to be very little material difference between a horn 

 which measured 49^ inches and one which measured 50 inches, the paltry 

 half-inch does, as a matter of fact, in the eyes of any one who has gone in 

 for collecting trophies, constitute a vast and insufferable gap ! To have 

 shot a 50- inch ibex is to have achieved a success with which the slaying of 

 a 49^-inch beast could never compare 1 



