THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
merges into the barren Gobi Desert which stretches interminably towards 
the fertile plains of China. Thus the haunts of Ovis ammon are peculiar, 
isolated, and comparatively free from any likelihood of being disturbed 
by the progress of civilization. They are not even in danger from the 
ordinary increase of the indigenous native tribes, for the Mongols are rather 
decreasing than increasing. In this respect the ammon has the advantage 
over the poli, for the latter is becoming more restricted in its range as time 
goes on, but the fastnesses of the ammon remain inviolate. 
Although the ammon has a large range, its refuges have only been 
attacked from one point. Every traveller who has set out to hunt this sheep 
has entered from the north or the Russian side, assaulting its stronghold 
at the nearest point of contact. It is a long journey from England, but, 
considering the distance, the time occupied is really very short. It is 
roughly 3,500 miles to the foot of the plateau, to the point where one out- 
fits with pack horse and caravan, and this occupies about a month. This 
brings one practically on to one’s ground, so, allowing a month for hunting, 
three months might see the hunter back in England with his trophies. 
Train, boat, tarantass and pack horses will supply transport throughout 
the journey. There need be no long days on foot, even on the hunting 
ground, for one can ride everywhere. 
In order to reach the haunts of the ammon, it is necessary to take the 
Siberian Express from Moscow and to disembark five days later at the 
wayside station of Novo-Nicholaevsky in the heart of Siberia. From here, 
during the summer months, steamers ply up the Ob River as far as the 
towns of Barnaul and Biisk, whence a good post road leads on up the 
valley of the Chuya to the little frontier post of Kosh Agatch on the northern 
side of the Little Altai. Here the typical Siberian scenery of forest, river and 
rugged mountain is left behind, and the traveller meets the open, treeless 
steppe country typical of the barren heart of the continent. Kosh Agatch 
itself is a steppe valley, situated at 6,000 feet above the sea — beyond tree 
growth ; and here for the first time fauna of a Central Asiatic type is met 
with. On the east and south the Kosh Agatch or Chuya steppe is bordered 
by the Little Altai and the Sailugem ranges, which form the watershed 
between Siberia and Mongolia. The ranges are not very high, they rise 
gradually in big rounded domes of snow-patched shale to about 10,000 
or 11,000 feet, the cols and passes being 8,000 to 8,500 feet in altitude. 
This is the limit of the range of Ovis ammon northwards towards Siberia. 
The sheep extend on to the northern side of the watershed, but it is scarcely 
182 
