CENTRAL ASIA 
steppes, actually descending at times on to the plain to feed on the salt 
plants, and they also exist on the highest pinnacles. In this range the 
summits are about 4,000 feet above the sea. 
The Nurata Dagh is a ridge about a hundred miles long, with a long, 
easy, featureless slope on the south, and a steep, sharply inclined northern 
face, well broken by ravines. A string of little villages extends along the 
foot of the northern slope. It was by this route that I went in the winter of 
1908 from the station of Djesak, and after hunting the range to its extremity 
returned by way of Nurata and Katti Kurgan. The sheep existed on the 
further half of the range alone, being found in twos and threes, as well as 
in herds of a dozen or more. The old ram, which I shot, and is here pic- 
tured, was a solitary beast. Owing to the presence of native shepherds and 
their flocks they are very wary of man, never allowing a close approach, 
but being quite unmoved by the appearance of shepherds and flocks so 
long as they are in full view at a safe distance. Their refuge is in the 
ruggedness of the escarpments, not in high altitude or huge areas of 
rolling country. There is no portion of their habitat which is more than 
2,000 feet above the plain. 
In connexion with these desert ranges, which are such a feature of the 
great Asiatic steppe, mention should be made of two other localities 
where wild sheep exist, but where no English hunter has ventured. On 
the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea is an arid bit of country called the 
Ust Yurt Plateau, where roam small bands of sheep of the “arkal ” type, 
identical, no doubt, with the Ovis vignei arkal of the Kopet Dagh on the 
Persian frontier. Away to the east in the Province of Akmolinsk, where 
Southern Siberia merges into Turkestan, there are many groups of hills 
where sheep exist. Whether they are of the variety that inhabits the Kara 
Tau, on the west, or whether they belong to the Sair varieties which 
approach on the east, we cannot say. They may be either, or perhaps 
form another intermediate variety. 
This district is most easily reached from the Siberian Railway by the 
post road from Omsk direct to the towns of Akmolinsk or Karkaralinsk. 
The latter is perhaps better approached from Semipolatinsk, which is 
only a few days’ journey away by post road. The steppe is here character- 
ized by innumerable isolated groups of hills, rising to 5,000 feet, where 
the sheep live. 
Having reviewed the mountain game and hunting grounds of Inner 
Asia, we are now confronted by immeasureable plains which occupy the 
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