THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
Borotala Valley, the chief resort of the Ala Tau sheep, horns of 48£, 49, 
51 £ and 53 inches have been shot by Mr J. H. Miller, the only British sports- 
man to hunt there. A picked-up head from that region taped 60| inches. 
On the Yulduz and Kok-su grounds, where more sheep -hunting has been 
done than anywhere else, larger heads have been obtained, probably owing 
to the very reason that it has been well searched. It does not follow that 
this region produces especially large heads, in fact, if I were in search of 
something with a big horn measurement, I would go to the largest and 
finest sheep ground, namely in the Narin districts to the south-west. 
On the Central Tian Shan, south of Kuldja, heads of 58 inches have been 
got, and 55 inches is a fairly common size. Anything over 50 inches in 
length makes a worthy trophy of the Tian Shan variety. On the Ak-sai 
Plateau, 50-inch horns on shot specimens and 54 inches on “picked-up” 
heads are on record. Further away still on the western portion of the Tian 
Shan, such as in the Son Kul and Alexandrovski ranges, all the sheep run 
smaller in size and in horn measurement. 
As regards these other sheep grounds, the mention of them brings for- 
ward the possibility of planning journeys and programmes other than the 
now somewhat hackneyed trip to the Kuldja district. 
The traveller may prefer to work his way thither through the mountains 
with caravan and pack-horse, instead of “posting ” along the monotonous 
plains. He may decide to visit and hunt systematically the almost un- 
trodden ranges of the Ala Tau, or to explore the further mountain chains 
which run out eastwards towards Mongolia. The Western or Russian 
Tian Shan holds out great possibilities, if ever the English hunter is per- 
mitted to travel there. Some six years ago I was lucky enough to make a 
reconnaissance of the extreme south-western corner, where the Tian Shan 
runs southwards and joins the Pamir mass. My observations prove what a 
wonderful hunting ground here lies undisturbed. The region is a plateau 
land of great extent merging northwards into typical Tian Shan scenery 
of big valleys, forested ridges, rocks and eternal snows. The main valley 
is the Narin or the head waters of the great Syr Daria, which flows into the 
Sea of Aral; south of this are the Arpa and Ak-sai plateaux where rise 
waters which eventually drain into the desolate Lob Nor in the heart of the 
deserts of Chinese Turkestan. Eastwards rise the spurs and ridges which 
eventually culminate in the gigantic mass of Khan Tengri. Here we have a 
plateau-valley which is typically Pamir, with its immense herds of wild 
sheep; we have also the heavily forested At-bashi and Upper Narin 
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