On the "Roof of the World" 165 



fifth was a good one, but instead of the big one of 

 the herd, a small one dropped. My disgust was 

 only equalled by the delight of my Khirgiz hunter. 

 Rushing up to the dead beast, " Ghosht lazim ? " he 

 shouted, "Ghosht lazim?" ("Do you want the 

 meat ? "), and without waiting for my reply he 

 began to strip great slabs of meat off the ram's 

 carcase, and having bound them on the pony, he 

 set off to camp. The cause of my cartridges 

 snapping was without doubt the intense cold. 

 After that I used to keep them in my pocket 

 instead of on a belt, and at night under my pillow, 

 and never had such another mishap. 



But it is time a word was said about the appear- 

 ance of Polo's sheep. To start with, he is of course 

 nothing at all similar to the woolly baa sheep we 

 are familiar with. In shape he is more like a deer, 

 his pelage reddish fawn with the lower part white, 

 and the white " caudal disc" very marked. Stand- 

 ing about eleven hands at the shoulder, the ram is 

 a most magnificent-looking beast. A front view 

 is required to show up his wonderful spread of 

 horns, the record length of which (a picked -up 

 specimen) is over six feet, measured round the 

 curve of a single horn. At a distance, when the 

 head is " in profile," the horns are not visible, but 

 they give the beast's head a very characteristic 

 shape, rather like that of a huge sparrow. 



