THE ASIATIC WAPITI OF THE TIAN SHAN
“And they travelled far, and further than far.”
—OLD FAIRY STORY.
There are many ibex in the Tian Shan mountains, but any one who
believes that a good head is therefore easy to get makes a very real
mistake. It is one thing to see them through the field-glasses, and
another to get them and bring them back in triumph to camp. Stalking
the big ibex is hard and tricky work.
The day after we reached the Ken River, Rahima Loon and I started out
for our tenth day of fruitless search for the Karelini. “Here and
there like a dog at a fair” we wandered over rolling, turf-covered
hills. Whenever we drew near a place from which we could get a wide
view of the country beyond, we dismounted and crawled to the crest
like little boys playing Indian. It was almost dark and we had worked
up into the rocky mountains before we saw anything. Then it was not
Karelini but a large flock of ibex. At first there seemed to be
nothing but females, kids, and young males. I counted sixty-four,
and there may have been more, for some, like the little pigs in the
story, skipped around so fast I could not count them accurately. We
watched them as they wandered down through the rocks to browse in
the grassy nullahs. At times the young males would spar and butt one
another, for all the world like their domestic cousins the goats.
They were thoroughly alert, nevertheless, and the advance-guard
of the troop as they stepped daintily along would pause every few
minutes, look carefully in all directions, and snuff the air.
Suddenly Rahima Loon nudged me and whispered: “Burra wallah!” (big
fellow). They were lying around a large rock. Some could be seen
entirely. Others were half hidden by the rock. At times they would
get up, stretch, and look around. At times they would lie on their
sides with their horns resting on the ground. There was no doubt that
they were big, for the horns showed the sweeping curve that comes
only with age and size.
There was no chance to stalk them. Long before we could have reached
their rocky stronghold, it would have been too dark to shoot. We
watched until the light failed, and planned our campaign for the next
day.
Early next morning we left camp. For seven long hours we toiled over
ridges and, like the wizards, “peeped and muttered,” for the ibex had
shifted their ground during the night and we could not find them.
It was afternoon when we finally sighted them again. The big males
were lying high on the hillside with the rest of the flock spread
fan-wise around them. Two stalks lay open to us: one over the top of
the mountain, the other up a nullah to a point where the small fry
that surrounded the big animals were fewest. We chose the latter, as
it was shorter, and for nearly three hours we worked our way toward
them. The last half-mile was over slide rock. Trying to walk over
slide rock without noise is like trying to cross a room in the dark
without upsetting a chair. Careful as we were, an occasional rock
would clatter down the slope. Before we got within range the noise
alarmed the females, and the whole herd began moving away over a
ridge. We made a desperate eleventh-hour attempt to cut them off but
failed, and rode disconsolately into camp in the dark.
By this time, however, I was reasonably sure that I knew the general
habits of these particular ibex. Next day Kermit and I decided
to hunt them together. We started with our shikaries and “jungli
wallahs” about five next morning. A thick hoarfrost covered the
grass. It was nipping cold. The ponies shivered as they stood hunched
up under the saddles. As we rode up the nullah that led to the
hunting-grounds the sun had reached the mountain crests, painting
their snow-caps a delicate rose pink. By contrast the dark cold
valley where we were seemed even darker and colder.
We rode up the side of a ridge that would in many circles be
considered very fair mountaineering on foot, for a Kazak pony climbs
as if it had a monkey in its ancestry. Just below the crest we
dismounted and tied our horses. Then we got out our field-glasses and
searched the mountainside. In a short time we found the flock, tiny
light-brown specks on the slate-gray rock. A few minutes later we
spotted our big fellows. They were in the same relative position they
had held on the two previous days, in the rocks two or three hundred
yards below the snow-line, with the rest of the herd in a crescent
around them. After a hurried discussion, we decided that the best
approach was to work up the reverse slope of the shoulder on which we
were to the crest of the mountain, then to push our way through the
snow until we were directly above them. Accordingly, we set out for
a preliminary four miles of what Kermit calls “side-hill grouging,”
that is, walking diagonally across the face of a slope with an angle
of forty-five degrees. There are different kinds of grouging. There
is, for example, walking along the side of a partially turf-covered
hill. This is not bad. Then there is walking along a slide-rock slope
where it is possible to diagonal in two directions. This is harder,
for there is always the danger of starting a rock-slide. Last and
worst is grouging a slide-rock slope for a long distance in the same
direction. Here there is not only the danger of a landslip but, in
addition, the up-hill side of the feet become very sore. On this
stalk the first four miles were on the right sides of our feet and
mainly over slide rock.
As we walked along the west slope of the ridge, three great ramchukor
zoomed over us from the opposite side. Kermit and I both started, for
they sounded exactly like seventy-seven shells. I believe if there
had been a shell-hole handy, we would have instinctively run to it.
After two hours’ climbing we reached the snow, and through it we
ploughed for another mile to a point we had marked as nearest the
animals. We worked cautiously over a jutting rock and saw the big
ibex below us. They were nearly 300 yards away, and were half
concealed by the overhang of the rock around which they were lying.
A hasty whispered conference ensued. We decided to go on through the
snow until we were on the other side of them, and then work down a
rocky buttress to a point from which they would be about one hundred
yards distant. Going through the snow it was reasonably easy to be
quiet, but when we got to the rocks it was very different. We were
so close that any noise might alarm the game. We watched every step
and tested the footholds before putting weight on it. The wind was
treacherous and gusty, as it generally is in the mountains, and this
was an additional source of worry. Fortune was with us, however, and
we got to the spot we had picked without frightening the ibex. After
cautiously looking them over, we prepared to shoot. At this critical
moment one of our shikaries lost his head and ran like a wild man
along the sky-line. The game saw him and were alarmed. There was no
time to be lost. It was my first shot and I fired just as they were
moving off. Kermit followed suit immediately. We wounded but did not
stop our animals. In a moment we caught sight of them again as they
ran swiftly in single file through the rocks somewhat farther away.
Again we fired in the same order. Luck perched on our shoulders, for
both ibex fell and rolled head over heels down the steep slope. My
animal was dead but Kermit’s, though very groggy, was up and away
again. Kermit finally stopped him with a phenomenally long shot near
the mountain crest. We started for our kills at once. Rahima and a
Kazak went with me, Khalil and another Kazak with Kermit. My buck had
rolled some three or four hundred yards down-hill. It is surprising
how far animals will roll down these steep mountainsides, sometimes
with disastrous results to their horns. Several times I have nearly
rolled down a mountain with an ibex while trying to skin him where he
had fallen.
When we got to my ibex we found he was a fine animal with horns
measuring fifty-one and a half inches. While we were skinning him
we heard a rumbling roar above us. We knew instantly what it was.
Without even stopping to look up, Rahima and the Kazak started
running as fast as they could to a buttress of rock that jutted up
a short distance away. I paused just long enough to glance in the
direction of the noise and saw, silhouetted against the sky, rocks
leaping like ibex. For the first time I understood the Psalm “Why hop
ye so, ye high hills?” I joined the other two as quickly as I could,
and from the safe shelter of the great rock we watched the avalanche
churn by taking our ibex with it. A short distance below, on less
steep ground, it slowed up and stopped. We gingerly made our way down
to it and were delighted to find the head of the animal uninjured.
The body skin, however, was so badly torn that it was useless to try
to save it.
I had been carrying around some strychnine to poison the carcasses
of such game as we might shoot in order to get specimens of the
scavenger birds and animals. This seemed to me an excellent
opportunity to use it. While I was putting in the poison I heard a
long-drawn whistle. There was Kermit on a neighboring ridge making
his way down with his ibex, an animal about the size of mine. He
waved to me and evidently wanted to know what I was doing, so I got
up and shouted to him. Then I went on with my work. After a few
minutes Rahima remarked: “Kermit Sahib and Khalil, they come down.”
I looked up and, sure enough, Kermit and Khalil were scrambling down
the side of the ridge toward us as if they were running a race.
I could not imagine why they were doing this, but put it down to
exuberance of spirits on the part of Kermit. I remarked to Rahima
that it showed what a tough man Kermit was when, at the end of a long
hard stalk such as we had just made, he would run down a mountainside
for fun. Then we turned again to our work. In a few minutes there
was a clatter of rock and Kermit called: “How do you feel, Ted?” I
replied in some surprise that I felt perfectly well. It turned out
that when I called he had understood me to say I had been poisoned.
He had been hurrying down as fast as he could scramble, expecting to
find me in a very bad way. Rahima thought it was all a great joke.
Kermit naturally did not look at it from that point of view.
Kermit waited until we finished, and we walked down together to the
ponies, mounted, and rode to camp through the gathering dusk. We had
both shot other and larger ibex, but we were as much pleased with
these two as with any. We felt that they had taken hard work and real
skill to get, and that is what gives the flavor to shikar.
Next morning the boy we sent out to look at the poisoned carcass came
back with an enormous vulture, a lammergeyer. Its body and wings were
white shading to buff, except the tips of the wing and tail feathers
which were brown shading to black. It measured ten and a half feet
from wing-tip to wing-tip. Unfortunately, the Kazak who brought it to
camp had used it in part as a saddle, so that it was too much torn to
be worth skinning.
Here in the Kargaitash our caravan was a more complete,
self-sustaining unit than it had been at any other time. We had a
flock of sheep. They were fat-tailed sheep, with a ridiculous bustle
of wool on their hindquarters which flounced around as they trotted
along. It gave them an even sillier appearance than sheep usually
have. On cold nights they coughed exactly like fussy old men. Two or
three times I was on the point of asking which one of the men had a
bad cold when I realized what it was. We had also a cow and a calf.
The former was brought along to give us milk, the latter presumably
to share the milk with us. We never found out who came first, but we
got little milk and the calf prospered.
In recognition of our letters to the Chinese officials we had an
indeterminate guard of Chinese soldiers. We used them for carrying
messages. Like all troops of their type, they were always practising
petty oppressions on the natives. We would hear sounds of shrill
altercation in some village we were passing, and know that something
was going on that should not. Then soldiers and villagers would
troop out, all talking at once, to lay the case before us. It was
difficult to administer justice, for with our very limited means of
communication it was impossible to find out just what had happened.
Among the soldiers, however, were two good men. The first was a
captain, the second in command at Shutta, who joined us as we reached
the Kargaitash. He was a good-looking man, tall and slight, with
aquiline features. He took a personal interest in our success and was
always willing to help. The second was a square-built mustached Kazak
named Suffa, who officiated at times as our shepherd. True to his
blood, he was a natural hunter, and often pointed out game while we
were on the march. As guides we had three Kazak jungli wallahs headed
by old Tula Bai, reputed to be eighty-six years old, but as spry as a
cricket. We became genuinely fond of all three, and were really sorry
to part with them when the time came for them to leave us.
[Illustration: A KIRGHIZ GRANDMOTHER MOVING HOUSE]
[Illustration: A KALMUCK MARMOT-HUNTER]
Our pony men came from Aksu. They were a cheerful lot, who almost
invariably seemed in a good temper, rain or shine, snow-covered
glacier or sun-scorched plain. They were very hardy, and I often saw
one or more of them stripped to the waist striding along through a
snow-storm. Last but not least came our own men whom we had brought
with us from Kashmir. The best of these was Rahima Loon, our head
shikarry. He had the dignity that is peculiar to the best type of
Oriental. He was tall and slight, with a black beard and hawk nose.
He knew game and its habits thoroughly. He also had courage. Rarer
than all these in the East, he was economical with our money. He
unquestionably saved us many hundreds of rupees during the trip. He
had been taken to England by one of the “sahibs” with whom he had
hunted, and had a general knowledge of the world that far exceeded
that of any of the others. He was cautious in his statements and
refused to prophesy as to game. When we asked him what we should find
in any particular place, he almost invariably would reply: “We go
lookum see!”
Fezildin, the dog boy, had changed greatly on the trip. When he came
with us he was a timid, unassertive little fellow with the usual
Indian pipe-stem legs. He never showed any initiative or mind of his
own, but slunk around in the background like a small black shadow. On
the way up from Yarkand he began to expand and develop until he had
metamorphized into a regular jungli wallah. He discarded his pugri,
and blossomed forth in a Turki cap with a fringe of waving black
goat hair that framed his face and made him look like the “Wild Man
of Borneo” of the circuses. He turned in and helped with the horses
and did well. He forded the worst streams without a sign of fear.
Indeed, he was generally one of those sent out with a lantern to
help Kermit or me when we came back after dark from hunting and had
to cross bad water near camp. He was taught skinning, and under the
tutelage of Kermit became quite good. His specialty was skinning out
the legs, which, next to the head, are the most difficult parts of an
animal to prepare. More than all this, when there was work to do he
did not have to be hunted out of some corner. Barring the time when
poor Foxie died, there was no possible fault to find with his care
of the dogs. He was very fond of them and very kind. To hear him when
they had done something wrong, however, you would have thought he was
an ogre. He bellowed at them like a bull of Bashan, but often while
shouting with the utmost ferocity would beat them with a wisp of
straw.
Our gamble with the dogs did not turn up trumps. To begin with, the
death of Foxie was a severe blow, for we considered him our mainstay.
Then there were very much fewer varmints in the Tian Shan than we
had anticipated. The bears that Kermit and Cutting shot, and one
snow-leopard that we picked up with the glasses some two miles away,
were the only ones we saw. In all the hunting that we did, we only
came on fresh signs once. As far as the tiger were concerned, we were
told that they existed no longer in the Tekkes. Natives are only too
willing, as a rule, to say that there is lots of game when there is
none, but in this case they all said there were no tiger now. They
said that during the last ten or fifteen years the native hunters had
killed them off with poisoned meat. Though we tried, we were never
able to get the dogs on any varmint trail that was fresh enough to
follow. Naturally, this disappointed us, not only because we missed
the hunting, but also because we became very fond of the dogs and
felt they deserved a chance to make good.
To get good hunting with dogs there should be better conditions
than we had, and also a man in the party who gives them constant
attention. This man should be an expert on dogs, and should spend his
time handling them and searching for country where they will get a
chance. Kermit and I were not experts with dogs, and we were far too
busy to give them the unceasing attention they needed.
I was not very fluent in Urdu. Kermit was a good deal better than I
was, which is merely damning his Urdu with faint praise. Rahima Loon
and Khalil spoke English which in quality much resembled our Urdu.
The result was that at times we had difficulty in understanding each
other. This was particularly so when one of the shikaries would try
to point out game to us. At best it is hard to see the game they have
found. Their eyes are so good that a tiny dot which looks like a rock
to the white hunter is recognized at once by them as an ibex. Their
favorite method of placing animals was to say in English: “There,
just by white e-stone” (stone). As the entire mountain to which they
would point was covered with rocks that might have passed as white
stones, this was like trying to point out a lark in a meadow by
saying it was by a blade of grass. Eventually we would get them to
rest the rifle on some rocks and sight it. We would look over the
rifle, find the exact spot at which it was pointed, and then search
with field-glasses until we found what they had seen.
Sometimes other amusing mistakes occurred. About four-thirty one
cold morning we were getting up to hunt. I was already dressed and
had washed in water warmed over the fire. Kermit was still snugly
cuddled in his bedding-roll. I had the virtuous feeling common to
all on such an occasion, combined as it always is with a rancorous
jealousy of his more comfortable condition. In an attempt to be
humorous I told the native servant, in my best Urdu, that I wished
some cold water to throw over Kermit Sahib to make him get up. A
basin of warm water was waiting for Kermit by the tent flap. The
native promptly took it away, brought it back filled with ice-cold
water from the stream, and solemnly placed it by the washing things.
He thought that I had told him that Kermit wished cold water for
washing. It seemed an odd taste at four-thirty of a bitter cold
morning, but then sahibs are proverbially odd.
All through this region the hawks, vultures, and eagles were
numerous. There were generally one or more in sight, floating over
the country with far-seeing eyes. Often I lay on my back between
stalks, and through my field-glasses studied “the way of an eagle in
the air.” I agree thoroughly with Solomon thereon, for I have rarely
seen anything that approaches these birds in power and effortless
grace. At times there would be a gale blowing and they would swoop
hither and yon simply by planning, or hold their position over a
certain spot by a flickering motion of the wings.
Among the small birds there were pigeons, sparrows, larks, and
swallows, but by far the most striking were the black-and-white
magpies. There were always two or three flashing about the landscape
with that swaggering dandyism peculiar to their breed. I saw them
on the grassy hills, in bush-covered slopes, and down among the
pine-trees. I watched very carefully and never saw a hawk molest a
magpie. Kermit saw a hawk make one unsuccessful attack. The magpies
did not seem to be really afraid of the birds of prey. This seemed
all the more remarkable, as they are certainly the most conspicuous
of birds. They seem to have swaggered themselves into immunity.
The insect life, like the bird life, was not diversified, but in
some cases was only too numerous. The chief offenders were the
horse-flies. I noticed three species of them. One was like a bee
covered with yellow down and corpulent; one like our horse-fly with
green eyes; and one the same except for brown eyes. They were most
plentiful on the grassy hills. On the slatey peaks of the mountains
and in the forest-clad valleys there were comparatively few. They
were only active during the sunshiny hours, disappearing like magic
when the day clouded over or the sun set. Their bark was considerably
worse than their bite. I did not feel them as much as those found
in the salt marshes of Long Island, but their numbers and ceaseless
buzzing made them at times unbearable. As Rahima Loon sadly remarked
to me after he, like David, had been killing his ten thousands: “Kill
one, come three.”
In contrast to the horse-flies the butterflies, though numerous,
were welcome. They were very lovely and we found them everywhere.
There was a deep-red variety with spotted wings that was particularly
common. It seemed as if every patch of flowers had one resting on
it, its wings moving gently, as if it were breathing. We found other
varieties high on the mountains among the slide rock. Those I noticed
were more slate gray in color like the rocks, possibly an instance
of protective coloration. They had small colored eyes on the wings.
A couple of times when I was riding into camp after dark I noticed
small white moths in quantities, fluttering about like the fairies of
bygone days.
We saw only one species of snake, a small one, twelve to eighteen
inches long. It was brown in color, the back banded with darker and
lighter stripes. All the men were afraid of them and said they were
poisonous. One of our horses that died was killed, we were told, by a
bite on the lip from one of them. This we did not believe, but their
fangs when dissected did show small poison sacs at the base. As we
had left Cherrie our reptile tank with the alcohol, we put two into a
bottle of arak given us as a present by an Amban. Taking into account
the quality of the liquor, this seemed to us very appropriate.
By this time we had collected the males of all the principal animals
that we expected to get in the Tian Shan with the exception of the
wapiti, the Asiatic cousin of our elk. It is the largest deer of
the Eastern hemisphere. Among living deer it is exceeded in size
only by our wapiti. It became known to Western scientists later
than the American variety and is named after it, for it is called
cervus canadensis songaricus. The mature males weigh between eight
and nine hundred pounds. The horns when in velvet are considered
a valuable medicine by the Chinese. Large prices are paid for
them. In consequence, all the native hunters, Kalmuks, Kazaks and
Kirghiz, hunt them continually during the late spring and early
summer. All along we had been worried for fear we would not be able
to get specimens of this animal, for it is scarce. Indeed, Church
in his book written in 1899 considered them to be on the verge of
extinction. They are easiest to get when they begin to call. They
do not call, however, until the middle of September, and we felt we
should start for the Pamirs by that date.
The wapiti live lower down the valley than the ibex and Karelini, so
we had to shift camp. We split our caravan, taking with us only the
barest necessities, and marched down the Kooksu. Here this river is
particularly lovely. Its turbulent and milky waters flow through a
rocky gorge. On the south bank the forests run from the edge of the
canyon up the hills. Occasionally there is a little grassy meadow.
On the north bank the hills are bare and unforested, except where
tributary streams run in through similar though smaller gorges.
We camped for the night in one of these small gorges. Through it ran
as clear and pretty a brook as any trout-stream of our own North
woods. The spruce forest around was virgin. Great fir-trees towered
gracefully above us. Beneath them the ground was brown and fragrant
with their needles and cones. Here and there the gray dead trunk of
some giant tree stretched full length through the undergrowth. On
all sides the hills framed us. Magpies flitted saucily around the
outskirts of the camp, watching for scraps. The gurgling of the brook
sounded ceaseless through all, like the underlying motif in a melody
of Mozart’s.
The morning after we arrived, Kermit and I shouldered our rifles and
went out by ourselves, while Rahima went to look for wapiti sign in
a nullah north of camp. We walked down the main river and enjoyed
ourselves thoroughly, but saw no game. When we got back to camp it
was noon and quite warm. The opportunity seemed heaven-sent. We took
our soap and towels and went to the brook for a much-needed bath. The
water was icy cold, and in order to get it to cover us we had to lie
down on very sharp stones, but we felt like fighting-cocks when we
were out drying on “a bar of sun-warmed shingle.”
[Illustration: WAPITI COUNTRY]
[Illustration: KHALIL, NURPAY, AND A TIAN SHAN WAPITI]
When we returned to camp we found Rahima was ready to start. He was
far from cheerful. He said he had seen no wapiti signs, and feared
that there were very few in the country. We flipped a coin to decide
which way each should go. I won, and chose the left branch of the
canyon, which seemed the better.
Rahima, a Kazak and I rode up a steep little path to a grassy
plateau. From the top we could see the country for miles. The short
fragrant summer of the Tian Shan was drawing to a close. The leaves
were already turning, and patches of red and brown dappled the green
of hillside and valley. To the south, the ridges and snow-crowned
mountains stretched like the foam-crested waves of some giant ocean.
We rode up to a point from which we could get a view of the
valley, dismounted, and through field-glasses studied woodland and
scrub-covered slope. We saw nothing and soon moved on to where we
could get another view. Again the result was the same. A cold,
drizzling rain was falling when about four-thirty we reached a hill
eight or ten miles from camp, from which we could look into a new
canyon farther to the west. We were thoroughly discouraged, for so
far we had seen the tracks of only one wapiti, and even they were
some days old. After we had been searching the country for about a
quarter of an hour, Rahima touched me on the arm and said “boogha,”
Turki for stag. He pointed up the valley. I looked as carefully as
I could but was unable to see anything. He said there were two and
that they were lying in the bushes. In a moment one of them got up,
and I was able to make him out through the telescope. He was a fine
big animal of a slate-gray color. He was standing toward the end of a
rather broad nullah just beyond a grove of stunted willows.
There was no time to lose, for they were a long way off and darkness
was coming. We had a hurried consultation about the stalk. With
the wind as it was there seemed to be only one course open, and
that was to skirt the small valleys to the right until we came to a
slight fold of ground near where they were feeding. It was a long
distance—some three miles. We started off at a jog trot along the
hillside—Rahima, Tula Bai’s son Kassein and I.
Generally I make my shikaries go slowly. All shikaries have far too
great a tendency to run their sahib up to the game. This makes the
man with the gun shoot when he is out of breath, and multiplies the
chance of a miss, for it is possible to be panting only mildly and
yet be entirely unable to keep the sight on the target. The shikarry
himself, of course, does not notice for he does not shoot. Those who
shoot only at a target often wonder why sportsmen miss the shots
they sometimes do. The answer is that the sportsman rarely shoots
under even approximately good conditions. He is tired or winded, or
his position is bad, or he is hurried, or the target is blurred and
indistinct. To say “the shooting was done under ideal conditions,” is
as accurate as the military phrase “at this point the general threw
fresh troops into action.” No “fresh troops” are ever thrown into a
big battle. They are always worn by long marches or lack of sleep, or
both. In the same way a sportsman never gets ideal conditions.
This time, however, there was no time to go slowly. It was a question
of “Root hog or die!” The three of us hurried over slippery wet
hillsides, tripping and falling every few minutes. We climbed over
loose rock. We threaded our way between patches of a tall, spiny,
cactus-like plant that is common in these mountains. It began to rain
in earnest and our clothes became sodden and heavy.
At last, after an hour’s hard work, we crept over a rise and saw our
game. They had moved up the ravine, and were feeding toward a crest
from which the ground sloped into another canyon. There was not a
minute to spare, as they were moving. We crawled on all fours to the
point we had marked for our shot. They were much farther away than
we had expected, and every moment took them still farther. I could
not see their horns with my naked eye. They must have been more
than 250 yards away, for I paced it afterward and made it 452 of
my rather short paces. I was blown, and the rain was beaded on the
sights. I raised my rifle, and, taking the most careful aim possible,
fired. Fortune tipped my bullet. I saw the stag falter and I knew
he was hit. Then I did what I never would have done had I not feared
this might be our only chance for wapiti. I switched and fired at
the other. Again I was in luck, for the bullet took effect and he
staggered. Immediately I switched back to the first, who was slowly
making his way up the valley, and with three more shots brought
him down. By this time, however, the second animal had gone quite
a distance and was moving through the scrub fully 400 yards away.
I fired at him a number of times as he showed himself between the
bushes. I could get no rest for my rifle as I was on the steep slope
of a hill. The range was far beyond any at which I am reasonably
sure, and I missed. At last I got Kassein, made him kneel down, and
using him as a rest managed to register another hit before the wapiti
disappeared over a wooded shoulder. Calling to the men to follow, I
started plunging down the hill to trail the wounded animal. The men
were far too excited to heed, and ran like lamplighters to where the
first animal had fallen in order to hallal him and make him legal
Mohammedan food, so I plodded on alone. The jungle was of willow and
thorn bushes from four to eight feet high and thickly matted. Beneath
them were boulders and cactus-plants. I tangled my rifle in the
branches. I slipped and fell. I tore pieces out of both my clothes
and myself. To make matters worse, it was now quite dark and I had
only two cartridges left. When I reached the crest over which the
wapiti had gone, I was blowing like a steam siren. About this time
Rahima and Kassein joined me. In a few minutes they pointed out the
wapiti some seventy-five yards away. I fired and missed. That left
me with one cartridge. I scrambled down the hillside through the
deadfall. At times I got a glimpse of a pair of antlers or a broad
gray back in the brush ahead, but I did not dare chance a shot, as
all my hopes were pinned to that last cartridge. All three of us
crashed down through the scrub-willow jungle. Kassein ran ahead.
With the usual hardiness of his kind, he seemed as fresh as if he
were just starting. By the time we got to the foot of the slope he
was well in advance, ranging to left and right like a bird-dog. Well
behind, I ploughed along like a very old broken-winded horse with
the string-halt. Behind me in turn was Rahima. A shrill whoop from
Kassein told me he had our game in sight. Breathless as I was, I
could no more have replied than I could have made the proverbial leap
over the moon. I headed for him as rapidly as possible, and saw him
pointing to a clump of bushes just ahead. Suddenly I found myself
within twenty yards of the wapiti, who was looking in the direction
of Kassein. My shot took effect, and the fine animal rolled over dead.
One antler of the dead wapiti showed above the grass. For a moment
I thought he was a “stag royal,” for there were seven tines on this
horn, but when I looked at the other I found there were only five
tines on it, which made the head a twelve-pointer. The first stag
that I had hit was a splendid big animal but had only ten points.
Thoroughly happy, I sat down and lighted my pipe.
It was now pitch-dark and raining. Under the circumstances, with the
wapiti a mile apart, we could not skin them that night. Kassein took
off one of his multitudinous ragged shirts and I took off my leather
jacket. We hung these over the carcasses like scarecrows to keep any
wolves or scavenger-birds away, and started back to the ponies. When
we got to the place we had left them, we found they had strayed, and
as far as I was concerned were hopelessly lost. Kassein added to his
other admirable qualities owl-like eyes that could see in the dark.
He wandered off over the hills, and soon called from the inky black
that he saw the ponies. We rounded them up and, shivering but happy,
got into the wet saddles.
After two hours’ riding we came to the head of the valley where our
camp was. Just at this moment the rain stopped, and the moon shone
out through the hurrying clouds. The black shapes of the spruce-trees
clothing the hillsides contrasted sharply with the bare slopes where
the wet grass shimmered in the moonlight. Below us in the valley our
camp-fire glowed through the clustered shadows. Rarely have I seen so
welcome a sight.
Kermit had seen nothing during the day, so we started early next
morning, he to make another attempt to get a stag, I to skin the two
I had left in the nullah. Rahima, Kassein, and two of the pony men
came with me, with extra horses to carry the heads and hides.
When we got to the valley we found the wapiti undisturbed. In the
morning light they looked very big. The larger measured nearly
nine feet in total length. This was the ten-pointer, not the
twelve-pointer. As so often happens, the size of the horns did not
indicate the size of the body. The wapitis’ summer coat is red. Their
winter coat is gray. The two that I shot had practically completed
the change to their winter pelage. They looked to me grayer than our
wapiti in the United States, and their antlers seemed less massive.
The men all turned to and helped skin, chattering like monkeys. While
they were working I noticed Rahima cut the secretion out of the
tear-duct, wrap it carefully in paper, and put it in his pocket. I
asked him why he did it, and was told that if a woman mixed it with
water and drank it she was sure to be fertile.
We got back to camp about two o’clock. Shortly after, Kermit came
in with a good bull wapiti he had shot early in the morning. That
gave us all the stags we needed for the museum. The wapiti, which
we feared would be very difficult to get, had taken only two days’
hunting. The men were delighted, for they were much afraid of the
Pamirs in early winter, and knew that this piece of fortune would
make it possible to start sooner after the ovis poli.
That evening they built a rousing spruce-wood fire. Its flames
danced and flickered in the shadows of the towering evergreens that
walled the camp. They squatted around it; the hookah was passed from
hand to hand, its gurgle at times audible above the crackling of
the logs. Old Tula Bai, his bent form, wagging beard and peaked hat
giving him a gnome-like appearance, presided as dean of the Kazaks.
Rahima Loon, his eyes gleaming from his dark, clean-cut face, was the
central figure among the Kashmiris. The ruddy firelight shining on
the bronzed faces threw the whole scene into a bold relief of lights
and shadows. Kermit and I drew our chairs up to one side of the
fire, smoked our pipes, and listened to stories of stags with great
antlers, shot by sahibs whose last trek was made twenty-five years
ago.
Having shot our male wapiti, we still had before us the necessary but
uninteresting task of getting a female, or maral, as they are called
locally, to complete the group for the museum. Rahima Loon, who was a
true sportsman, could not quite understand this. He always regarded
the fact that we shot females for the museum as a rather serious blot
on our otherwise amiable characters. He now suggested that, instead
of waiting in the Tian Shan for the maral, we should start back at
once for the Pamirs. He explained that there were plenty of female
deer in India which we could send the museum for the group. We told
him that three male wapiti with a female deer from India would not
do. He accepted this rather gloomily as simply an illustration of the
weak spot in our intelligence.
After much discussion, we decided that the best way to get maral was
to camp at the junction of the Kensu and the Kooksu, and hunt from
there. Next morning we moved our baggage-train to this point. In the
afternoon we forded the Kooksu and hunted the wooded slopes beyond
till dark, without success. When we got back to camp, we found a
soldier had arrived from Shutta with a message for us. He also told
us that Cherrie and Cutting had been at Shutta for ten days. This
put them in the Tian Shan nearly three weeks earlier than had been
planned. We had had no letters from them, and we feared something had
gone wrong. After talking it over, we decided that we had better go
back and join them at once. As for the maral, we would have to try to
get it somewhere near them.
Next morning we collected our entire caravan and took to the road
again. No one must be deceived by this use of the word “road.” A
road in the Tian Shan does not bear the slightest resemblance to a
road in the United States. It covers anything passable by a clever
mountain-pony. The roads here range from the trails across the
plains, which are the best, to mountain tracks over glacier and
cliff, which take either an ibex or a Tian Shan pony to negotiate
successfully.
We pushed on as fast as we could. We crossed a couple of snowy
divides, dropped through the spruce-clad foot-hills into the plain,
and at the end of the fifth day came to the Moon Tai River. Here we
got news that “two sahibs” were in the neighborhood. We camped and
sent out men to bring them to us. As we were sitting in front of our
tent in the late afternoon, we heard a shout and saw Cherrie and
Cutting riding toward us. They both were thin, Cutting particularly
so. He was still wearing his enormous regulation British army
sun-helmet. In it he looked like a very small candle under a very
large extinguisher. We all thoroughly enjoyed our reunion after
nearly two months’ separation.