OF HIMALAYAN SPORT. 257 



horn " of the Eocky Mountains {Ovis montana), which is 

 a good climber. During the rutting season the rams are 

 mucli given to fighting, and their whereabouts may some- 

 times be discovered by the clashing together of their horns, 

 which, when the air happens to be still, can be heard at a 

 great distance, though the animals may be hidden from 

 view. The Ovis Ammon is strictly a Tibetan animal, but, 

 as it sometimes frequents the more gentle slopes on the 

 eastern side of the Himalayas, it may be included among 

 the game of those mountains. 



This magnificent wild sheep, owing to the remoteness of 

 its haunts and the difficulty in circumventing it when you 

 get there, not to mention the grandness of its trophies when 

 secured, is perhaps more prized than any other Himalayan 

 game. In fact, the man who fairly stalks and kills his big 

 ram Ovis Ammon, may consider he has gained the " Blue 

 Ribbon," so to speak, of Himalayan sport. 



On the 10th of July we left Lookoong for Chooshul, a 

 fair-sized Tartar hamlet near some borax-mines, about eight 

 miles southward of the Pangong tso, along the side of which 

 the greater part of our three days' journey to it lay. Not 

 a living thing was there to be seen, nor was there a sound 

 to break the dead silence around this watery waste save the 

 monotonous plash of the wavelets breaking along the sandy 

 shore. From the unmistakable evidences about its mar- 

 gin, the water of this lake must be steadily receding ; and 

 Changter informed me that a long low rock which appears 

 above water near its northern end was, within his recollec- 

 tion, quite invisible, and that each year it is gradually be- 

 coming more exposed. The water, although clear as crystal, 

 is quite undrinkable, from having an intensely salt and 

 bitter taste. 



I had been told of a good locality for finding the big rams 

 on the Chinese frontier eastward of Chooshul ; but as the 

 same ground had also been recommended to the Major, I 

 relinquished my intention of hunting it at present in his 



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