CENTRAL ASIA 
Asia is less known to English sportsmen, and although it may be said with 
fair certainty that it does not hold out great opportunities for sport, it is a 
delightful country and offers a wide field for researches into the natural 
history of the few rare beasts that inhabit it. No one knows, for instance, 
how far the Ovis poli range into Eastern Bokhara, no one has shot what 
must prove to be a new variety of markhor which inhabits the hills border- 
ing the Oxus on the north in the neighbourhood of Kuliab. The stag of 
the Oxus Valley is known only by name, and the wild sheep of the outlying 
spurs of the Hissar Mountains is only just beginning to find its right 
place in the list of Asiatic sheep. 
Bokhara is easily reached by the Central Asia Railway, but permission 
to leave the railway and travel freely in the interior is most difficult to 
obtain, while the mountainous region bordering the Oxus and the Pamirs 
is always forbidden ground. Should, by any chance, a permit be obtained, 
there should be no doubt as to the country which calls for special investiga- 
tion. The mountains bordering the Zarafschan River on north and south 
may be discounted as they are only inhabited by small ibex and bears ; it is 
the Upper Oxus Valley and the western declivities of the Pamirs, in the 
districts of Darwaz and Shinghan, that the real interest lies. In the Oxus 
Valley above Termez there are some out of the way localities where wild 
pig, stag and tiger abound. The latter alone are well worth a journey, which 
should be made in winter, for then alone is there any chance of success. 
The stag of the Oxus Valley is confined to the jungles which margin the 
river, its habits and environment corresponding to those of the Yarkand 
stag, of which we know a great deal more than we do of the Cervus bactrianus. 
I know this stag to be numerous on the course of the river east of the point 
where the Vaksh enters it. The Oxus here runs in many channels, the 
islands being covered with thickets and jungles. It is a wild locality, unin- 
habited, and impenetrable for the greater portion of the year. Further up 
the valley the stags roam as far as Kulab; beyond this the mountains 
hem in the river and allow no suitable ground. Whether or not these deer 
extend the whole length of the Oxus as far as the Sea of Aral I cannot say. 
Severtzoff mentions finding such a beast on the lower course of the Syr 
Daria, which I imagine must have been of this variety. 
In the same locality inhabited by the Bokharan stags, tigers are fairly 
numerous. These we know range the whole course of the Oxus from the 
Sea of Aral to the foot of the mountains near Kulab. They are seldom hunted 
or seen. I have good reason to believe they wander across the desert 
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