418 WILD ANIMALS. 



small, and are not to be compared with, the great yak of the 

 Himalaya, the back of which is more like an elephant's than any- 

 thing else. Indeed, it is the shaggy hair and savage eye of the 

 yak which make its appearance so striking, for the head is not 

 large, and the horns are poor. The tail is a splendid feature, and 

 the white tails of yaks are valuable as articles of commerce. . . . 

 The yaks of burden which have been domesticated, or rather half 

 domesticated, for generations, are exceedingly wild, and the only 

 way they can be managed is by a rope attached by a ring through 

 the nose. I had scarcely had time at Lippe to admire the yak 

 which was brought for my use, than, the man in charge having 

 dropped this rope, it made a furious charge at me ; and I after- 

 wards found that yaks invariably did this whenever they got a 

 chance. I cannot say whether this was done because I was 

 evidently a stranger, or because they regarded me as the cause of 

 all their woes ; but certainly, as he went up that terrible and 

 apparently endless Rechang Pass, with one man pulling at the 

 yak's nose-ring in front, and another progging it behind with the 

 iron shod of my alpenstock, the Bos grunniens had an uncom- 

 monly hard time of it, especially when he tried to stop ; he did 

 not keep grunting without good reason therefore ; and I could not 

 help thinking that my Poephagus had been perfectly justified in 

 his attempt to demolish me before starting. 



" If my reader wants to get an idea of the comfort of riding upon 

 a yak, let him fasten two Prussian spiked helmets close together 

 upon the back of a great bull and seat himself between them. This 

 is the nearest idea I can give of a yak's saddle, only it must be un- 

 derstood that the helmets are connected on each side by ribs of par- 

 ticularly hard wood. The sure-footedness, and the steady though 

 slow ascent of these animals up the most difficult passes are very 

 remarkable. They never rest upon a leg until they are sure they 

 have got a fair footing for it ; and, heavy as they appear, they 

 will carry burdens up places which even the ponies and mules of 

 the Alps would not attempt. There is a certain sense of safety 

 in being on the back of a yak among these mountains, such as 

 one has in riding on an elephant in a tiger hunt ; you feel that 

 nothing but a very large rock, or the fall of half a mountain, or 



