SPORT ON THE PLATEAUX 343 



We covered an enormous stretch of country that 

 day, and saw large numbers of sheep ; they were mostly 

 females, but one herd of thirteen rams contained two 

 or three beauties. However, the first day's success 

 was not destined to be repeated. They had evidently 

 been disturbed, and had taken up such an unapproach- 

 able position, both with regard to wind and the open- 

 ness of the country, that, though we tried every artifice, 

 they eventually got our wind, and made tracks for the 

 higher ground. We came across a great quantity of 

 derelict horns that day ; in one small valley below a 

 cliff I counted fifty in about half a mile ; it is in places 

 like this that most of the horns are met with, the reason 

 being that the driven snow lies deep in such places 

 in winter. At that season packs of wolves are con- 

 tinually harrying the sheep ; a herd, in its mad rush 

 for safety, gets caught in a drift ; the females and 

 young rams, unencumbered with 40 lb. weight of horn, 

 make good their escape, while the old rams get 

 stuck fast and are killed. This accounts for the pre- 

 dominance of fair-sized horns lying about in certain 

 localities. 



On reaching camp, I saw that Carruthers' hunter 

 had found and brought in the two heads shot the day 

 before, one of them being a beauty of 55 in. Carruthers 

 himself, soon afterwards, returned with another fair 

 head of 50 in. — a pretty good two days' work. A council 

 was held that night, at which we decided that, as we 

 still had such enormous distances to travel before 

 reaching our winter quarters at Kulja, we could not 

 afford any more time for hunting the sheep. It 

 was very disappointing to have to turn our backs on 

 the old rams just when we had got into the cream 



