PERSIA 
you could not fail to drop an animal with a shot fired into the brown, 
followed if possible by more shots into a disappearing brown, and more 
dropping! One must therefore use these people, who have an excellent 
eye for country, but keep the command oneself. 
Let me describe an actual stalk as it happened. Fifteen rams are lying 
just below the top of a distant rounded hill, a typical sheep’s position, 
affording a good view all round except one, but from that side they would 
be warned of danger by the wind curling over the brow of the hill. The big 
glass shows several worthy heads, but they are too far to say more about 
them. The stalk begins with a plunge down into a deep, winding ravine, full 
of high grass and blackberry bushes. Then across a stream overhung by 
willow trees, up a nala> and so to the top of the ridge on which the rams 
were lying. We have decided to accept the risk of the wind, so work round to 
the back of the hill and crawl over the top. Nothing is visible from there. 
We retreat and try again a little further on. The rams are all lying within 
fifty yards of me! Of three I can see the bodies, of more the upper halves 
of their bodies only, of some only the head, of another only the round of a 
great massive horn. There are more out of sight below the curve of the 
ground, but no means exist of reaching to any spot whence one could get 
a view of the whole herd. A difficult position indeed! A retreat and crawl 
to another point gives no better result. Any more craning of the head, 
any further liberties taken, are almost certain to lead to disaster. There! 
One ram has already seen me. He is on his feet and I am looking straight 
into his white face. In another second they will all be off. The standing 
ram looks a good one; he may be bigger than he looks. (How rarely is 
such a hope justified!) But this is no time to wait or deliberate, and he 
drops to the shot. The rest of the herd lose no time. I can only hear a 
retreating clatter of stones. Running forward, I sit down to use my glasses. 
They are visible, going hard on the opposite slopes. Now how about the 
ram that brings up the rear of the herd ? A real big ’un and no mistake! 
He must have been just out of sight when I took the shot. Now they are all 
gone and I go back to the shot ram. A fair head of 34 or 35 inches, but 
who is content with the second best out of a herd, and he may not even 
have been that! Well, well, the word spoken, the arrow from the bow, 
as the Persians say, are beyond recall, and so was that shot of mine. But 
how a missed chance of this sort goes on rankling! 
In the country I have been speaking of, if one’s luck was in, very much 
in, one might in the same day shoot a urial, an ibex, a maral stag, a tiger 
65 
K. 
