ASIA 
INTRODUCTION 
'll SIA, although presumably the cradle of the human race 
and our original home, has received less attention 
from us than other more distant regions, and has often 
been passed by with unmerited neglect. Consequently 
she has kept her secrets from us more effectively than 
has any other continent and has retained her own 
atmosphere — unspoilt by the West — with better success than many far 
remote corners of the earth’s surface. 
With characteristic reticence Asia has withheld from us, until quite 
recently, a great deal of all she possesses in the way of an exceptionally 
abundant and remarkably interesting animal life. The outskirts of this 
vast continent have been known to the West from time immemorial, but 
the heart of the continent still holds many mysteries and is the ambition 
of many energetic travellers. In spite of her age Asia has been neglected, 
while the energies of wandering Britons have been concentrated upon 
younger and more “novel” regions such as Africa, with the result that 
the so-called Dark Continent has now been almost laid bare, while Asia 
still holds out opportunities and prospects to travellers in search of 
interest, to scientists in quest of knowledge, and to hunters desirous of 
obtaining strange beasts and fine trophies. 
It is, of course, an immense field to describe, even from any one aspect- 
such as its sporting possibilities, and the species of big game it contains. 
Consider for one moment the varied character of this continent, which 
spreads for 5,000 miles from east to west and which covers 75 degrees 
of latitude north and south. Take note of the contrastive elevations of its 
land surface, from 1,300 feet below the level of the ocean to 29,000 feet 
above; of its mountain ranges, which run in unbroken chains for 2,000 
miles, its inland lakes which are seas, its remarkable plateaux, such as 
the Pamirs and Tibet, which are tablelands hung in the sky at an average 
altitude of over 12,000 feet above the ocean. 
What an immense variety of animal life must exist in such strange and 
varied regions. The Asiatic big game, which we are attempting to describe, 
range from the lands of greatest heat to the region of perpetual ice and 
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