INTRODUCTION 
wonderful antiquities. Even these are all trifles — mere adjuncts to the 
main objects of his visit. For his real intent is the pursuit of some trophy 
upon which he has set his heart. 
In this direction Asia offers many and varied hunting grounds, some 
old, many new, and all of them unspoilt. Even India, which has endured 
hard hunting by Englishmen for more than a century, has endured it 
without suffering much harm and destruction; there is still much to 
attract the hunter thither. As a whole, Asia is a new field, open to all who 
wish to try their luck. Vast areas have been scarcely touched at all; it 
would be quite easy to hunt ranges which no white hunter has ever dese- 
crated; one could get into “new” country in a couple of weeks from 
London in certain portions of the Near East. On the other hand, the interior 
of Asia possesses hunting grounds which it is no small labour to reach. 
They are 1,500 miles from the sea, railways do not extend their tentacles 
to within 1 ,000 miles of them, laborious stages by slow methods have to 
be resorted to, the undertaking develops into an expedition which has 
to be carefully thought out and planned. 
Hunting in Asia has many contrasts, for you may have some very nice 
shooting in a month’s holiday from London, journeys included, or you 
can choose a beast as your “lodestar” whose haunts it may take you 
six months to find. You can get into the heart of the continent in ten 
days, but you may not even be able to land on the coasts of Arabia. It 
is a six -weeks’ hard journey over half a dozen high mountain ranges 
in order to reach Chinese Turkestan from India, but you can go in a cart 
all the way from Siberia to China with small cost and little trouble. There 
are no two districts alike, no two trips can be “ run ” in the same way, 
no two localities have the same conditions or are inhabited by the same 
game. 
A whole volume could be written on Indian big game shooting, and 
not one word of it would apply to Tibet or Inner Asia. Persia is a 
region to itself, the Caucasus is another. Syria and Arabia hold 
unique conditions and a fauna which is African, Indian and European! 
A guide to the prospects of shooting in Mongolia in no way holds good 
for other parts of Western China, that great Empire alone could be 
divided up into several descriptive areas, and yet it is after all only a 
small corner of Asia. 
There are great praises to be sung in favour of travel and sport in the 
East, and with all hyper criticism I cannot find many things that might 
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