THE GAME OF THE PLAINS 585 



as long as no human being is in sight, they are perfectlj^ 

 safe, and so they consider the same to hold good when 

 they are among the scrub. Any one who has attempted 

 to approach gazelle in the former type of country will 

 hardly be able to believe that they are ever easy to get 

 up to. It was a complete revelation to us. 



We were not able to skin all the beasts that evening, 

 and we had the greatest difficulty in getting the skins off 

 on the following morning. The carcasses had been 

 frozen solid during the night, though lying inside our 

 room in the serai. Before they could be skinned they 

 had to be hung over a fire and thawed out — a slow and 

 messy job. Though we met with gazelle here and there 

 through the scrub-belt as far as Urumchi, we never again 

 saw them in their winter quarters in such numbers as 

 at Takianzi, and regretted not having spent another 

 day there. ^ 



In the zone of Piedmont Gravel on the south side of 

 the Karlik Tagh gazelle-drives were organized for our 

 benefit, but, as is usual with this mode of hunting, 

 beloved by all natives, they proved most unsuccessful, 

 one buck, which fell to Carruthers' rifle, constituting 

 our only success. The method the Chant os adopt is 

 for a large party of ten to twenty horsemen to ride out 

 to a likely locality. On finding a herd, they ride rapidly 

 forward on whichever side the ground is most favour- 

 able for concealment and for taking advantage of. This 



^ The winter coat of this gazelle is very dense and from 2 to 3 in. 

 in length. The upper part of the body is dark fawn ; legs, belly, and 

 rump white ; tail black (6 in. in length) ; neck and head very pale fawn, 

 but, in some cases, almost white, and frequently there is a dark streak 

 under the eyes and black hairs round the base of the horns. The 

 characteristic of this gazelle, as compared with the other Central Asian 

 species, is that the horns are considerably more divergent and less closely 

 and boldly ringed. 



