THE GAME OF THE PLAINS 593 



feet : excellent footgear for dry ground, but the very 

 worst for the country in its then damp state. A tight- 

 fitting, black skull-cap was all that protected his head, 

 which matched so closely the colour of his hairless face, 

 tanned black by constant exposure, that, at a few 

 yards off, it was impossible to see where one ended and 

 the other began. A glance was sufficient to tell that 

 he was a hunter, without the evidence of a bundle of 

 freshly killed sheep meat, tied up in the skin of the 

 animal. He was just the man we had been looking for, 

 and we lost no time in questioning him as to the game of 

 the region. Nears — for that was his name — was one of 

 those children of the wilderness who, having spent their 

 lives, from boyhood, in hunting, have an unsurpassed 

 knowledge of the habits of the various species of game 

 which roam their mountains and plains. The way he 

 could distinguish game, read spoor, and forecast the 

 movements of the animals was almost uncanny. Yet in 

 other respects he was nervous and childish in the extrem.e. 



The two days at Ta-shih-tu were spent in hunting 

 for sheep. There were a good many of them about, but 

 I saw only one with a good head, and he, with the wari- 

 ness of his kind, eluded me at the last moment. Two 

 rams which I had killed carried only small horns, but 

 their skins v/ere of interest, being in full winter coat, 

 with a pure white neck-ruff over three inches in length. 



As I have already pointed out, the sheep of the 

 Karlik Tagh are karelini, being in every respect similar 

 to those of the Borotala. They inhabit the whole of 

 this eastern extremity of the Tian Shan wherever they 

 can find seclusion from the natives. Though their horns 

 do, undoubtedly, occasionally reach a great size there, 

 the percentage is much smaller than farther west in the 



