CHAPTER LXXXIII. 
HUNTING THE WILD YAK 
E arly in the afternoon I started for the dead yak, 
intending to measure and sketch the animal. But 
she was already inflated with gas, and as hard as a drum, 
whilst a liquid mingled with blood trickled noisily out of 
her mouth. From the inner corner of her upper lip to the 
root of her tail she measured 8 feet. The length of the 
head, from the base of the horn to the upper lip, was 
22 ^ inches; the circumference of the muzzle 17I inches; 
above the eyes 29-^ inches ; round the neck behind the 
ears 28 inches. Her height at the shoulder was 4 ft* 6 in. ; 
at the loins (her legs being stretched straight out) 4 ft. 5 in. 
The tail, including the tuft at the end, measured inches 
in length ; whilst the length of the horns on the outside 
was 17 inches, and on the inside I5f inches, and their 
circumference at the root 7^ inches. I did not measure 
the girth of the body owing to its distention. Its colour 
was black as coal, with a magnificent tuft at the end of 
the tail. The hoofs were powerful ; the udder not very 
developed, but the teats on the other hand were large. 
Thick black fringes of woolly hair hung like draperies 
down the animal’s sides ; but there was none under its 
belly. The bottom jaw was equipped with eight slanting 
incisor teeth, the upper jaw with a broad horny callosity. 
The tongue was thickly covered with horny barbs, directed 
backwards towards the throat. With these the yak plucks 
up grass, lichens, and mosses, using its tongue more than 
its teeth and horny upper jaw in grazing. 
Finding that yaks were numerous in that neighbour- 
hood, we decided not to take the skin, but wait until we 
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