CENTRAL ASIA 
I NNER Asia, as a sporting country and as the home of some of the 
finest beasts of the chase, has remained comparatively unknown until 
quite recently. It has rested secure, jealously hiding its unguessed 
possibilities in the way of “ ampler hunting grounds,” being safely 
barred from intrusion by endless deserts and gigantic mountain walls. 
The barrier of the Himalayas, the Russian steppes, aided by political 
intrigue, kept the heart of the continent long closed to hunters who were 
eager to try the new fields opened suddenly by the arrival of European 
prestige and influence. Only the progress of western power in Asia and the 
final settlement of international boundaries, have brought about a state of 
affairs that has enabled the naturalist and the hunter to visit those regions, 
which they had long known of but had been forbidden to visit. 
Considering that it is only fifty years since the Russian penetration 
of Central Asia was an accomplished fact, and that the very first explorers 
from India only succeeded in climbing the mountain barriers and in 
looking down into the secluded heart of the continent about seventy years 
ago, it is not surprising that inner Asia is comparatively new ground and 
that the list of travellers who have visited it is a short one. It is not more 
than twenty -five years ago that the first hunters reached the real home 
of the finest and most highly valued of Asiatic trophies — the Ovis poli of 
the Pamirs. That paradise for sportsmen — the remote Tian Shan ranges — 
was only discovered some sixteen years ago, and only during the last 
few years has it come to be regularly visited by Englishmen. The other 
main shooting ground of inner Asia — the Mongolian Altai — held its 
treasures unappreciated and its sacred valleys undesecrated by European 
hunters until 1895. 
Broadly speaking, the Pamirs and the Tian Shan have been the goal of 
all hunters who have desired to visit innermost Asia. These are the two 
great strongholds of wild game, they hold the finest trophies, and, with 
their outlying spurs and surrounding plains, compose what is generally, 
but rather indefinitely, called Central Asia. But in order to give a descrip- 
tion of the game of Central Asia that will in any way be complete, it is 
necessary to include the whole vast tract of country which reaches from 
the Caspian to Mongolia. India, Persia and China are described else- 
where; they are regions belonging to separate faunistic zones. But 
Transcaspia, Russian and Chinese Turkestan — bounded by Afghanistan, 
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