336 LIMIT OF VEGETATION IN TIBET. 



prairie-dog "cities" in America, our men would sometimes 

 secure them by smoking them out of their holes, and killing 

 them with sticks and stones. To cook them they were first 

 singed bodily in the fire to remove the hair, and then cut up 

 and boiled, skin and all. 



The Major and I had arranged to meet at a place called 

 Numa, on the Indus, where it is fordable or ferryable, accord- 

 ing to the season, as we should there have to cross it on our 

 way to the Hanle country, where we intended to try our luck 

 after the goa (Tibetan gazelle). As my camp was at an ele- 

 vation of over 17,000 feet, calculated by boiling-point thermo- 

 meter, and was fearfully cold and windy, I was not sorry to 

 turn my steps downwards in the direction of Numa, which we 

 reached in two days. 



Hearing no news of the Major at that place, by way of 

 keeping myself employed until his arrival, I moved up the 

 Indus valley to a locality where I was told we might find some 

 napoo. I met him, however, at the place where I intended 

 camping for the night. He had seen a good many big Oves 

 Amman on the ground he had been over, but unfortunately 

 had killed none, so we decided to go there and hunt it for a 

 few days longer, as he said there was plenty of room for two 

 guns. He accordingly returned next morning to his old 

 ground, whilst I devoted a day to a search for napoo; but 

 finding no fresh signs of them, I moved on and camped within 

 a few miles of him. There I engaged the services of one of 

 the occupants of some black yak's-hair tents that were pitched 

 close to mine a Tartar herdsman who was well acquainted 

 with the ground in the vicinity. 



In order to get to leeward of our first day's beat, as the 

 wind was blowing upward which it almost invariably does 

 up here during the day, and downward at night we began 

 the morning by toiling up to the extreme limit of the scanty 

 tufts of vegetation, which limit, in Tibet, is about 17,000 feet 

 more or less. Above were steep bare acclivities of loose 



