THE BUFFALO. 415 



commendatory of the host's joviality can be said, than that ' he 

 regaled his guests out of the dong's horn.' 



" The horns so used are finely polished and mounted with silver, 

 or gold, or precious stones It is common in Thi- 

 betan goompas (Lamaserais) to see a stuffed ' dong ' standing in 

 front of the image of Maha Kali, at whose shrine the animal is 

 thus figuratively sacrificed ; axes and other instruments of sacri- 

 fice are ranged around the image." 



Colonel Prejevalsky,® who came across the wild camel in his 

 travels, also obtained specimens of the. wild yak, which he de- 

 scribes as being a handsome animal of extraordinary size and 

 beauty, totally unlike the species to be generally found in zoologi- 

 cal collections. It measures when full grown eleven feet in length, 

 exclusive of its bushy tail, which is three feet long ; its height at 

 the hump is six feet ; girth round the centre of the body eleven 

 feet, and its weight ten or eleven hundredweight. 



"The head is adorned with ponderous horns, two feet nine 

 inches long, and one foot four inches in circumference at the root. 

 The body is covered with thick black hair, which in the old males 

 assumes a chestnut colour on the back and upper parts of the 

 sides, and a deep fringe of black hair hangs down from the flanks. 

 The muzzle is partly grey, and the younger males have marks of 

 the same colour on the upper part of the body, whilst a narrow 

 silvery-grey stripe runs down the centre of the back. The hair 

 of young yaks is much softer than that of the older ones ; they 

 are also distinguishable by their smaller size, and by handsomer 

 horns with the points turned up, whereas those of the older males 

 are turned more inwards, and are always covered near the root 

 with dun-coloured wrinkled skin. 



" The females are much smaller than the males, and not nearly 

 so striking in appearance, their horns are shorter and lighter, the 

 hump smaller, and the tail and flanks not nearly so hairy. 



" But in order to have a correct idea of the yak he should be 

 seen in his native state on vast plains, which lie at an elevation 

 of 15,000 feet, seamed with rocky ridges as wild and barren as 



6 " Mongolia : being a Narrative of Three Years' Travel in Eastern High Asia, 

 1876," translated by E. Delmar Morgan, E.E.G.S. 



