248 ON THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 



impostors and marched them off to the official at 

 Liangchow, who was a man of prompt action. 

 Consequently, on our arrival, to parody Charles 

 Kingsley, "three corpses lay out in the muddy 

 streets," and the inhabitants of the city were lying 

 very low. 



A favourite pastime of the district was the chop- 

 ping down of telegraph poles, these being a con- 

 venient form of fuel. Ten miles of these useful 

 articles having been demolished outside the city, tele- 

 grams were forwarded over this distance in a more 

 or less unreadable condition by mounted messengers. 

 Two or three men had been executed at Kanchow, 

 this being the only effective deterrent. We saw 

 one head nailed up in a wooden cage outside the 

 walls. 



The plain in which Liangchow is situated gra- 

 dually narrows, low hills drawing in on each side. 

 At a place called Shia-kou, on December llth, 

 about half-way between Liangchow and Kanchow, 

 we saw gazelle. These turned out to be Przewalski's 

 gazelle (Gazellaprzewalskii). They stand about 26 

 inches at the shoulder. Discovered by Colonel 

 Przewalski, the species was named in his honour 

 in 1890. Closely allied to and rather larger than 

 the goa or Thibetan gazelle (Gazella picticaudata), 

 the main characteristics of both varieties are the 

 extremely short tail, and the absence of horns in the 

 females. The strongly hooked tips to the horns 

 of the males render them easily recognisable. 

 The ears are short and pointed at the tips. They 

 are yellower in winter than in summer, and the 

 adult bucks may be distinguished by their darker 

 markings. The nose is dark and gives rather a 



