BIG GAME 131 



may be termed home rule. If the shooter 

 visits the mountains on the frontiers of 

 Szechu'an, Yunnan and Kwei-chow he will 

 probably find two kinds of bears, one full 

 grown, the Hsiung, the other smaller and 

 known as the dog bear, Kow-hsiung. Both 

 kinds are black and have excellent fur, and 

 I hear that their flesh is good eating. 

 These bears are caught when young and 

 tamed without much difficulty ; they are 

 taught to perform and then taken to Han- 

 kow and other open ports and exhibited in 

 the ring. The bears on the Tibetan frontier 

 are larger than those in Kwei-chow. Some 

 of the Tibetan bears are said to weigh half 

 a ton, and occasionally one has been killed 

 that weighed as much as a ton. General 

 Mesney relates to me that one evening, in 

 1877, during his first journey in Tibet he 

 and his party camped at a Chinese military 

 station near a forest at the foot of some 

 mountains not far from the Tibetan town 

 Si -tang. During the night the party were 

 alarmed by the sentinels firing off their 

 matchlocks, and on inquiry it was learned 

 that one of the pack mules had been killed 

 and half eaten by a bear which was thought 

 to be one of the larger size, as an ordinary 



