366 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



The place was an idyl of desolation ; not a shrub, nor a 

 bird, nor a living soul in sight, while the few blades of grass, 

 here and there apparent among the debris fallen from the 

 cliffs above, had a half-hearted air, as if they knew that they 

 were out of place. The mountains on either side were for- 

 bidding to a degree. Down their rugged sides dashed torrents 

 from the glaciers above. The head of the valley was blocked 

 by some grand snowpeaks, which reared their proud summits 

 to a height of 20,000 ft. and more. There they stood (and 

 stand) unnamed, unmeasured, and unknown, waiting for some 

 one to conquer their virgin snows. 



It had been no easy task to persuade our Kara Kirghiz 

 hunters to come to this place at all. They asked why I wanted 

 to go ? They said that there was no grass there, that the horses 

 would die of starvation ; and did I think that the 'Gulcha' (the 

 Kirghiz name for Poli rams) would stay in a place where there 

 was nothing to eat ! For generations their fathers had been 

 hunters, and did I, a stranger, know better than they ? 



However, I pointed out to them that we had everywhere 

 found skulls of fine old rams from ten to fifteen years old, and 

 yet we had hitherto seen no ram over five years old in the 

 flesh. How did they account for that ? In reply they said that 

 no Kirghiz had ever seen one of the big ones alive. ' Then,' 

 said I, ' come with me and I will try to show them to you,' 

 for I felt perfectly certain that the Poli were not different in 

 their habits from the Ammon and the Bighorn, and that it 

 was only a question of time before we found the old rams in 

 some secluded spot, away from the females ; and the event 

 showed that I was right. 



We left camp one morning about 4.30 A.M., and rode up 

 the main valley for an hour or so. This brought us to the 

 mouth of a side valley, up which we turned, keeping to the 

 east side of it, so as to be in shadow. The elder Kirghiz, 

 Dewanna by name, soon detected something about two miles 

 away on some high undulating ground across the valley. 

 Dewanna was using binoculars, and though I tried to use my 



