240 AMONG THE IBEX OF TURKESTAN. 



picked clean, and the horns and skins had been tied on 

 to the ponies, we made our way back to camp. 



Fortune is proverbially a fickle goddess, but she 

 smiled on me during these last two days of my sporting 

 expedition, for having vouchsafed to me a 5 If -inch 

 ibex as narrated above, she was further pleased to 

 bestow upon me another 50-inch head on my last day's 

 shooting. Two 50-inch heads in the last two days, after 

 having spent the previous eleven in fruitless endeavour ! 

 It was all very satisfactory, and every one was pleased, 

 more especially when I doled out bricks of tea and bags 

 of nahs, of which I had laid in a stock at Kulja, to 

 celebrate the successful termination of the trip. 



On June 16 we struck camp and started on our 

 return march down the Oriyaas valley. The melting 

 snows had converted all the streams into foaming 

 torrents, which raced angrily over uneven rocky beds, 

 making it difficult and sometimes even dangerous for 

 the baggage - ponies to cross. By marching at very 

 early hours, however, while frost still held their source 

 in check, we reached the Tekkes plain without mishap, 

 though even here, despite its comparatively sluggish 

 flow, the river was a power not to be despised. We 

 crossed successfully in the ferry, our ponies, freed from 

 their pack-saddles, swimming across after us ; but a 

 body of Kalmuks who happened to be crossing at the 

 same time were not so fortunate — one of their ponies 

 being drowned while struggling against the current. 

 The mishap, however, appeared to please them rather 

 than otherwise, for the body was fished out of the 

 stream lower down, and the last I saw of them they 

 were making a hearty meal ofl^ the sodden carcass ! 



On June 23, exactly one month after leaving, I 

 marched back into Kulja. A more enjoyable sporting 

 trip it would be difficult to imagine, and the time will 



