THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
the most barren hills in the lowest part of the Dead Sea depression. This 
is a significant fact and it will guide any hunter that chances to visit the 
district. 
There is a very extensive area to hunt over, and the actual hunting 
is of the most fatiguing nature, owing to the extraordinary roughness 
of the country. Much time will be saved by leaving this very rugged zone 
and carefully hunting the low foothills at the base of the escarpment. 
These are more or less easy going, and a large extent of country can be 
traversed in a day. The colour of the country is to be noted, for these low 
desert foothills are almost white in comparison to the red and black 
sandstone ramparts of the escarpment above, which the protective colora- 
tion of the ibex more closely resembles. 
The best locality in which to succeed in hunting these ibex is on the 
east side of the Ghor-el-Araba, at the south end of the Dead Sea. By 
camping at the mouth of the valleys where they enter the plain, one 
can hunt along the foothills or go up into the crags above. Thus one can 
move along southwards as far as one likes without being assailed by 
the great difficulties of transport which one has to deal with when 
actually in the declivities. I have seen ibex as far north as the Wadi 
Zerka Main, while Wadi el Kerak is a good locality to hunt in. They are 
also found in small numbers on the west side of the Dead Sea, Mr P. B. 
Van der Byl actually shooting a 30 -inch head near Ain Gedi, within 
twenty -five miles of Jerusalem. Southwards they range without a break 
to the Gulf of Akaba, and thence extend into the Peninsula of Sinai. 
The same ibex is found over the whole of the Arabian Peninsula, those 
from the farthest south, namely, from Yemen and the Hadramaut, being 
classed as a variety. 
As a hunting ground, the declivities of Moab and Edom are very little 
known, the majority of hunters who have shot the Sinaitic ibex having 
obtained them in the Peninsula of Sinai itself. There the actual “ grounds ” 
are, no doubt, more extensive, but whether the hunting is more easy 
on that account is very doubtful. The easiest conditions under which to 
find these ibex are when they inhabit secluded desert ranges where they 
are not harassed by native hunters. Some sort of protection is needed, 
and in these days it is either the very rugged country, such as Sinai, or 
very featureless and apparently inadequate hills situated in uninhabited 
localities. In Sinai one has a typical and a very extensive “ refuge 
for the wild goat.” It is, in fact, the largest ground on which the hunter 
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