228 Sport and Life in the Further Himalaya 



altitudes of Ladak and Tibet, and which makes 

 a hill two days' journey distant seem within 

 an hour's ride, yet a mirage hung like a veil 

 over the ground and distorted or concealed 

 anything there was moving on it. Once we 

 saw some misty dots appear and then vanish, 

 and on going to the spot found tracks of 

 antelope, but the animals that made them had 

 gone. Tall columns, like shadows thrown by 

 men on smoke, would come near us, which we 

 would discover to be wild asses (or kyang) 

 graceful animals without which no landscape 

 in Chang Thang would be complete, but none 

 the less meddlesome beasts, that spoilt many 

 a good stalk. It was not till we were nearing 

 our camping-ground by the light of the yellow 

 evening sun that on surmounting a little saddle- 

 back we came on a buck antelope standing at 

 gaze by the stream and not three hundred yards 

 from us. No doubt he had seen the tops of 

 our hats come bobbing over the horizon long 

 before we had spotted him. He only waited 

 to see me slip off my pony, with the idea of 

 stalking him black - buck fashion, to lay back 

 his horns and scour away over the plain like 

 an arrow from the bow. From the pace he 

 went one could almost believe there was some- 

 thing in the native story that antelope inflate 



