MISCELLANEOUS. NOTES, 393 
yards, tle ground for the first 200 yards or so being in full view of the ram, 
We had almost got over this dangerous bit when the ram slightly turned his 
head and we were spotted, Up he jumped and started up-hill, followed at 
ence by the rest of the flock, They were about 400 yards off, and going 
up a steep slope. I ought to have left them alone, and waited for a better 
opportunity another day, but, incited by Rakhmat and encouraged by the 
thought of the lucky flukes of shotsI had bagged my last O, poli with, I 
opened fire at the broken-horned one which was leading, Four long shots 
and the flock disappeared over the hill, and I knew I had made a mess of 
it, Even then,if Ihad left them alone, I might have found them again 
another day, but I now insisted on following them, A couple of hours stiff 
climb brought us to the top of the hill; There on the opposite side of 
the nullah were ten rams Standing in deep snow. These we made out with 
the telescope to be the big ones; the remainder of the flock, we saw by 
@ great track in the snow, had taken a road lower down. After standing still 
for a long time, the ten rams went on toa small bare patch of ground, 
from wkich the snow had melted, and lay down. They were about 700 yards 
off, and I foolishly again attempted a very difficult stalk—twenty yards 
or so of this had to be done in view of the herd. We were of course seen by 
them, and this time they eVidently made up their minds not to give us 
another chance. They managed with difficulty to find a way through the 
snow to the hill-tops, and there, after trying several places, they at the last 
found a pass, and disappeared over it into another nullah, or, rather, into 
another empire, for that line of hill-tops was the border between Russian and 
Chinese territory. 
Shortly after this a Kirghiz volunteered to take me over a pass toa place 
where he said we were certain to find big rams, As my yak drivers protested 
that the pass woild not be practicable for laden yaks, I determined to spend 
a day in reconnoitring the ground first myself. Taking a load of dried yak 
dung for fuel, we camped one evening high up just under the pass. It began 
to snow hard as we arrived, and by morning there was nearly a foot of fresh 
snow allround. It had cleared up slightly, so taking Rakhmat and the 
Kirghiz and three riding yaks, we started for the pass. It was a very stiff 
pull up and the snow was deep, so I preferred walking to flogging a broken- 
winded yak up the hill ; Rakhmait and the Kirghiz, however, went on riding 
until their yaks refused to go on and they had to dismount, Leading the 
three yaks, we reached the top of the pass,and were there met by such an icy 
hurricane that it was as much as we could do to stagger on against it. My 
Balaclava cap was frozen as hard as a board, and my face felt as if it was 
being cut to ribbons, Luckily the wind was only bad on the pass itself, and 
after descending a little we got out of the worst of it, The snow down the 
other side was deep, the yaks every now and then going in up to their bellies, 
However, after ploughing on for about a hour we got on to hard snow, and 
