CHAPTER X 



HUNTING THE TAKIN 



IT was on August 6th that our hopes were at last 

 realised. The night, cold and bracing, had shone 

 with a beautiful clear moon in a cloudless sky, and 

 we woke to a lovely sunrise and every promise of 

 a glorious day. By 5 o'clock we were climbing 

 the hill-side to the top of the ridge. The road lay 

 for the first mile or so through meadows thick with 

 stunted larches, whose grotesquely twisted branches 

 blended with the grey rocks which showed amid 

 the long wet grass. At one time I was reminded 

 strongly of pictures of caribou country in New- 

 foundland, at others of nothing so much as of 

 those rhododendron thickets which are so often 

 seen about the policies of an old Scottish home. 

 Presently we struck a narrow, knife-edged ridge, 

 which on the east descended abruptly in a series 

 of spire-shaped pinnacles to deep gorges with bare 

 and naked sides. Swiftly running mountain streams 

 gleamed like silver threads below. To the west 

 lay the large basin, a portion of which we could 

 see from the cave. At the far end it swelled 

 gradually to rolling tops, typical sheep country, 

 though there were no sheep, which again descended 

 to similar country on the far side. From the 



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