THE CAUCASUS 47 



out of sight at once), and then, as the weaker ones begin to 

 lag behind, the Tartar's time comes, and, slipping his great 

 hound, man and dog rush in upon the tired creatures. The 

 antelope of course is half beaten before the race begins, whereas 

 the dog is fresh and would at any time get over the sticky soil 

 better than the antelope ; so that, thanks to this and to the aid 

 of other hounds and men who head the devoted beast at every 

 turn, one djeran at any rate is pretty sure to reward the Tartars 

 for their pains. To us this always seemed unfair to the 

 antelope, besides which we had neither hounds nor horses at 

 Karias, so that we had to resort to stalking pure and simple. 



Long before the dawn we used to rise, and, with some local 

 Tartar for our guide, steal out silently across the level lands. 

 Arrived at what our guide considered a favourable spot, we 

 would lie down and wait for dawn. As the morning approached, 

 the cold increased ; then the sky grew lighter, and the mists 

 began to roll off the plain. By-and-bye a long string of laden 

 camels, which must have started from camp by starlight, would 

 appear upon the horizon, and then the sun came up and it was 

 day. The Tartar's idea was that when the sun rolled up the 

 mist-curtain for the first act, a band of antelope would be seen 

 feeding within rifle-shot ; but, as a matter of fact, we only used 

 to see those antelopes as usual making their exit over the sky- 

 line. One of the two I killed I shot at over 400 yards, goin^ 

 from me, and the other was found feeding behind what I think 

 must have been the only ant-heap in Karias. As I had spent 

 some days going as the serpent goes in a vain endeavour to 

 approach a djeran unseen, I found no difficulty in stalking this 

 comparatively confiding beast. On the Mooghan steppe the 

 djeran is less hunted than at Karias ; there is more cover, and 

 the game is less shy. It may be worthy of remark that, having 

 tasted game flesh of many kinds, including bear in America 

 and Russia, deer of all sorts from Spitzbergen to Elbruz, white 

 whale and a score of other questionable delicacies, I consider 

 that there is no meat which I have ever tasted to be at all 

 compared with that of G. gutturosc. 



