SPORT IN THE HIGHLANDS 579 



I should advise any one who does not fancy doing all 

 the hunting himself, to engage one of the well-known 

 shikaris from the Tekes, the Kalmuks of the Borotala 

 being quite useless in this respect. 



With the return to Kulja, although we were still 

 many thousands of miles from home, we considered 

 our programme of work accomplished. This narrative 

 was intended to deal with the undescribed regions of 

 Upper Asia, and, although we had yet to traverse a wide 

 area of country before reaching the coast, our route 

 led us across well-known and much- visited lands. 

 From Kulja we crossed the Central Tian Shan, and, 

 travelling by way of the great oases of Chinese Turkestan, 

 such as Aksu, Kashgar, and Yarkand, we passed 

 through a region whose physical features, history, social 

 and economic conditions, have all been exhaustively 

 dealt with by such illustrious explorers as Hedin, Stein, 

 and Huntington. Even the great Karakorum, the 

 highest and perhaps the most awe-inspiring trade-route 

 in the world, is now a hackneyed journey, granting, no 

 doubt, an experience not to be missed, and offering 

 unique lessons to the student of Central Asian geography, 

 but to which we could make no addition by a narration 

 of our experiences. From the breathless summit of 

 the Karakorum we bade farewell to Inner Asia, and our 

 route led on to Ladakh, Kashmir, and Hindustan. 



