46 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



intelligence, some one or other of the herd being always on the 

 look-out while the rest are feeding. They do not appear to 

 want water often, as no one ever tries to waylay them at their 

 watering places (indeed, I never met anyone who knew where 

 they went to drink), and the country they live in is natter than 

 the proverbial pancake, and as smooth as a billiard-table. 

 There is hardly a tree in the whole of it ; not a reasonably sized 

 bush in a mile of it ; I almost doubt if there is a tuft of grass 

 big enough to hold a lark's nest in an acre of it. I remember 

 once finding cover behind a bed of thistles on Karias, and the 

 incident is indelibly fixed upon my memory, I suppose, by the 

 rarity of such comparatively rank vegetation in that country. 

 Add to this scarcity of cover the fact that a floating population 

 of shepherds, Tartars and outlaws from Tiflis, hunt the djeran 

 incessantly, and it is easy to imagine that a shot at anything 

 less than 500 yards is difficult to obtain. The Tartars have a 

 method of their own for circumventing these shy beasts. 

 Knowing that under ordinary circumstances even the long- 

 haired Tcherkess greyhound would have no chance of pulling 

 down G. gutturosa, the dog's master manages so to handicap 

 the antelope that the greyhound can sometimes win in the race 

 for life. Choosing a day after a thunderstorm, when the light 

 earth of the steppe will cake and cling to thefeet, half a dozen 

 Tartars ride out on to the steppe, each with his hound in front 

 of him on his saddle. Having found a herd of antelope, the 

 hunters ride quietly in their direction. Long experience has 

 taught the antelope that at from 500 to 1,000 yards there is no 

 danger to be apprehended either from man or horse, so that 

 for a little while the herd fronts round, calmly staring at the 

 intruders, and then quietly trots away, turning again ere long 

 to have another look. From the moment the herd is first 

 found the Tartars give it no rest, nor do they hurry its move- 

 ments unduly, but are content to keep it moving at a slow trot, 

 not fast enough to shake the caked mud off the delicate 

 legs and feet of their quarry. In this way they gradually weary 

 the poor beasts (who seldom have wit enough to gallop clean 



