# Memoirs of Travel, Sport and Natural History/Chapter 14

Memoirs of Travel, Sport and Natural History by Henry John Elwes was first published in London in 1930, and edited by Edward G. Hawke
CHAPTER XIV
CENTRAL ASIA, 1898
In 1898 I planned an expedition to a part of Central Asia which has been visited by only very few Englishmen, though to a big-game hunter or a naturalist the Altai Mountains are one of the most attractive places I know of.
Though Mr. St. George Littledale, had gone there to hunt the Great Wild Sheep, and Major Cumberland has written an account of his sport there, I was the first English naturalist who had been in the Altai. My stay there was far too short to make extensive collections, but I was never more successful or enjoyed a journey better. My companion, Mr. W.A.L. Fletcher, one of the most distinguished oarsmen that Oxford has ever produced, was anxious, if possible, to reach the home of Prjevalsky's wild horse, which had then only been obtained by the Russian naturalist Grum Grshimailo; and as he had accompanied his uncle, Mr. St. George Littledale, on his great journey almost to the gate of Lhasa, he was keen to explore and survey new country, and to shoot big game on the journey.
It was important to have a really competent interpreter who could speak not only Russian but some of the native languages, and, on the advice of M. Semenoff, the President of the Russian Geographical Society, I engaged M. Berezowsky, who was a naturalist and had accompanied Potamin in an expedition to Kansu and Mongolia. I did not know at the time that Berezowsky was a half-breed, his mother, as I learnt afterwards, being a Buriat; he was personally a very good companion, honest, sober, and speaking very fair French, but he was slow, dilatory, and, like many Russians, bad to start in the morning.
As we had a considerable amount of baggage, including a tent, saddles, surveying instruments, and collecting outfit, Fletcher went out by sea to Riga, where he had the usual trouble, delay and expense, in getting our things through the Customs. I went round by Petrograd, where I picked up Berezowsky, arranged with the Bank for a credit on the Government Treasury at Barnaul—there being no bank or house of business in the province which could finance me—and met Fletcher at Moscow on May 19th. From here we sent our heavy baggage on in charge of a travelling servant, Joseph Abbas by name, who had accompanied Prince Demidoff to the Altai Mountains, and who, I believe, was an Armenian, though he called himself Persian; a very clever fellow, and a good linguist, but not the man for a journey entailing hard travelling, and as greedy to make money at our expense as most of his race.
We took the route by Nishni Novgorod and the Volga, spending two days on a very good and comfortable steamer on our way to Samara, where the weather became quite warm and summerlike. At Samara, which is a large, very dirty and dusty place with more Tartars than Russians, we got into the train; and on the next day entered the foothills of the Ural mountains, covered with an almost unbroken forest of elm, ​oak, birch and poplar, which has been much wasted by fire and axe, while many of the trees are dead or dying. We passed one or two mining towns, and in the evening came out into an open down or steppe country, crossing the frontier into Asia about six the next morning, at an elevation of not more than 2,000 feet. There is a place called Zlatoust near here, where the rainfall is said to be for this dry region unusually heavy, and where many rare butterflies have been taken; but I saw no really attractive looking halting-place anywhere between Samara and Tcheliabinsk, an important railway centre where we changed trains.
From here we had two long days and nights across the great Barabousky steppe, formerly the home of the nomad Kirghiz tribes, who are now, in the more fertile parts of it, being largely replaced by Russian settlers. This great tract of almost dead flat country is the most monotonous I have ever seen, full of small lakes and brown tracts of prairie interspersed with birch woods still leafless. The summer here had not yet begun; there was a sharp frost at night, and the peasants at the stations were still in their winter sheepskin coats. Though we saw little cultivation near the railway, there must be a lot of good land further back; for at many of the stations there were long piles of wheat in sacks waiting to be sent to the Black Sea for export as soon as trucks could be procured. As a rule, it seems, this wheat is not exported owing to the heavy cost of carriage; but this year, owing to the Spanish-American War, there had been a great rise in the value, and those merchants who, by favour or bribery, had been able to secure trucks before the price fell again to a normal level made large profits. But a great deal of this wheat remained exposed to the weather when we returned four months later, and was much damaged by rain, as the upper tier was green with spoiled grain.
The only flowers one could see from the train, or round the stations where we stopped, were Adonis vernalis and an anemone very like the one which grows on the prairies of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. This country has a good deal of resemblance to parts of the Canadian NorthWest, and may some day be a well-settled agricultural country; but the short summers, uncertain rainfall and distance from a market are all great drawbacks to its becoming, as some have predicted, a great grain exporting country.
On the third day after leaving Tcheliabinsk we reached the great river Obi, here about 1,000 yards wide and very muddy. Crossing it on a fine iron bridge, we left the train at a new town which has sprung up on the east bank since the line was made. We found that the steamer for Barnaul, the capital of the Altai Government, had just left. We slept at a small new hotel. The next day another boat came in crowded with passengers, but we were able to get on board. The weather was still cold, cloudy and rainy, and the scenery on the two banks of the river was without any beauty; with large villages at long intervals and a great many cattle, which are wintered on straw in great yards on the banks, from which the spring floods carry off all the manure.
We reached Barnaul on May 30th, and went to call on the Governor, General Bolderoff, who was very civil and promised passports as far as the Chinese frontier, I was obliged to carry a lot of money on from here, ​as there is only one town beyond Barnaul on our route, and from here on we saw no foreigners but one Dane who was exporting butter on a large scale to Europe. Joseph, with our baggage, went on by a slow steamer which took three days to reach Biisk. We drove in two carriages, changing our teams of three horses at stages averaging twelve to fifteen miles apart, through a level country more or less wooded with pine and cultivated at intervals with spring wheat, some of which was just up and some not yet sown. After a day and a half we got to Biisk, about 150 miles, where we got our first view of the Altai Mountains.
Though Biisk is the centre of a large through trade with Mongolia and a town of 10,000 inhabitants, which is the only source of supply for the settlers in a very large part of the mountains, there was m 1898 no tolerable hotel, or bank, and we had to lodge in an empty house which was badly infested by bugs. The streets, like those of Russian country towns m general, were deep either in mud or dust; and the spring was only just beginning.
We found here a Dutch fur merchant, who told us that he had bought many thousands of Mongolian marmot skins at ten copeks (twopence) apiece, which are dyed in Europe and sold under other names. He also had quantities of squirrel, badger, ermine, polecat and other cheap furs, but few sable, and those of poor quality. The only other foreigner in the town was a German commercial traveller.
While at Biisk a boy came to show me a pair of Maral (the Altai stag) horns, which I bought for fifteen roubles. They had only ten points, but were much wider than others I had seen: forty-seven and a half inches across the tray, and thick and heavy, the top points also well developed.
After four days' delay we succeeded in getting all our camp outfit and heavy baggage sent on to a village called Angodai, 350 versts to the southeast, and near the Chinese frontier. Beyond this there was then no road possible for wheel traffic. The transport was arranged at a very low rate, as empty carts were going to fetch goods from Kobdo in Mongolia. We started early on June 6th, and ten miles beyond Biisk crossed the Obi just at the junction of the Bija and Katun rivers. The Obi is here quite a mile across, but very shallow, and on the other side the track ran over a level steppe of fertile land, with marshy intervals, which made the travelling very bad to the large village of Altaisk.
At Altaisk great numbers of horses and cattle weie coming in from pasture when we arrived. The Cattle arc very small and stunted, and have no appearance of any distinct type or of care in breeding. The sheep, of which more than half are black or partly so, are also small and bad. The horses are small but very tough and hardy. We drove six hours with the same pair, about fifty versts, crossing some very deep boggy flats and swampy ground. They seemed quite fresh when we got in, except the shaft horse, which always has the hardest place. When well fed, they are often good-looking little horses, about fourteen hands, and very active in rough and also in swampy ground.
On the next day at last we got into the foothills, and began to find both flowers, birds and butterflies. Rhododendron, Chrysanthum, Magasea crassifolia, Anemone sylvestris, Corydalis bracleata and Trollius, were the ​most showy. The weather became rapidly warmer in the shelter of the hills, Scattered larches now appeared, but many of them dead or dying; and the forest generally in the neighbourhood of the villages was rapidly disappearing. A German forester said of the Russians what would be almost as true of Americans up till recent times, that they were "always and everywhere true wasters and destroyers of forest"; and as the consumption of firewood is very large, the time is not far distant when the settlement of these steppes and foothills will be checked by want of fuel. At present, however, the older villages seem very prosperous, and the houses where we slept were as a rule clean and comfortable. The people have much more freedom from Government interference in Siberia than in most parts of Russia, We saw nothing either of the mining districts or of political exiles.
Gradually ascending through grassy valleys with a luxuriant vegetation, we reached a low pass of about 4,000 feet, and among the flowers seen were quantities of a handsome Peony in bud, and beds of a variety of dog's-tooth violet (Erythronium denscanis), which is twice as tall, and with flowers twice as large, as the European one.
Having spent the night at Tchirga, we started at 6 a.m. on June 8th, and drove up a fairly level valley with the mountains gradually getting higher and more wooded. In two or three hours spruce began to show in the wet bottoms of the valley. When we had gone twenty versts, we found a small deer park by the side of the road with seven Maral stags in it, which are kept for their horns. They were now about half-grown, and, the owner said, would be cut off in a few days. Their value is from six to ten roubles a pound; and one very fine stag, which he said he had had ten years, would have horns weighing twenty pounds when cut, or ten pounds dry. They were in good condition, and well-fed during winter to make their horns large. The cutting does not seem to injure them at all, and, though they lose flesh during the rut, they live many years under these conditions. Some of them are caught alive during the deep snow, and some are bred in captivity.
The size of these deer is much greater than our red deer, but the colour much the same, though perhaps not so red; and the head very long and thin with large open ears. When moving, they carry their heads with the nose quite horizontal. The growth of the horns was very open, and the brow, bay and tray, are always better developed than the upper points, which are sometimes four or five on each side. I should certainly say that this animal was intermediate between the wapiti and our deer.
The next day we drove on over a low pass where the road was bad and very muddy. We had some Kalmucks—or rather Altaisk Tartars, for though of very Chinese appearance, dress and habit, they speak a language allied to Turkish—to help us up the hill; which they did by fastening their horsehair halters to our shafts, and pulling us on whilst mounted.
From this point we passed into the Tartar country; all the Russians were comparatively new settlers, and there were only two or three small villages before us. Many of these Tartars are very rich in horses; one man alone was said to have over 4,000. I also saw some yaks, which seemed much the same as the tame Himalayan yak.
​In about three hours we reached the valley of the Ursal, which is a changing point in scenery, climate and inhabitants; the soil is much dryer, the forest on the south side of the hills becomes thin and patchy, the hills are steeper and rockier, and no more cultivation is seen except a few small patches near Russian settlements. The valley of the Ursal is flat with rocky dry hills, sparsely wooded near their summit on the north side, and thickly wooded down to the flat on the south side. It is very strange how few springs and streams are in these mountains. Whether the soil absorbs all the rain I do not know, but you only find water in the larger valleys.
The river Ursal had in many places overflowed its banks and changed its course, leaving a broad marshy flat partly covered with large larch willows and brushwood. The whole valley was full of Kalmuck yourts (which are the tents of the nomads), built Indian lodge fashion and covered with large sheets of larch bark. They bred thousands of horses in this valley. I saw several new birds, including an Otocorys, Turdus atrogularis, a pair of Cranes, and a good many Wheatears and Warblers; Cuckoos were common, Woodpeckers very scarce, and Kestrels plentiful.
We reached the Katun river on June 15th, and camped on its bank for the night—the first time we had put our tents up. We followed the Katun to its junction with the Tchu (Tchuja), up which we turned. I had filled a box with plants, intending to dry them, but when we got into camp they were too much withered to dry properly. In order to make a collection of plants of any use one must halt for some time; one cannot do enough when travelling with pack horses most of the day.
As we went on, the Tchu valley assumed a more Alpine character, and trees came in on the north side. I found a considerable change in the butterflies: Papilio machaon was common, Parnassius delius appeared at 3,500 feet or less, I took two of the rare Thecla tridvalszkyi, and, by the waterside, a fresh specimen of Triphysa phryne, a species which I always supposed to be essentially a steppe insect. Further up the valley were caught two butterflies of exceptional interest: Erebia edda, which I only knew from East Siberia, and a very fine Œneis nanna.
We left the Tchu valley to cross a range of larch-covered hills. When we got out of the forest on to the open downs at the top, about 5,000 or 5,500 feet, we had a most splendid view of the very remarkable country before us. Fletcher said that it reminded him very much of that part of Tibet north of Lhasa where they were turned back by the Tibetans. We overlooked the Kurai steppe, which is a plain eight or nine miles long by five or six wide. The centre is flat and marshy, and covered with forest of larch and willow. On the south is a very high, snowy range of mountains, marked on the old maps as the Cholim range, which have glaciers of small size and are covered with perpetual snow for about 2,000 feet from the summit, which was about 10,000 feet. This range is the real boundary of China and Russia, though the frontier is a good deal to the south. The mountains were said to be uninhabited, and impassable from the Kurai plain, though I have no doubt that horses might be taken over them.
To the north are high mountains, but much more rounded and lower than those to the south, and a pass through them down the Kurai river ​leads to the Bashkaus river running into Lake Teletskoi. The whole view was very remarkable, and the dry character of the steppe close to the marshy larch forest was very striking. There were few plants actually in the plain, but many interesting Alpine plants on the hills round, and on the islands which the river formed. I saw a flock of Jackdaws, not at all like those which we saw north of Ongodai, and which were little paler on the neck than English ones. The old ones had the nape, breast and flanks quite white; but the young ones looked the same as English jackdaws. At the end of the steppe the valley contracted and the hills on each side were very steep, and looked like volcanic rocks, red and yellow in tint. Twenty-seven versts from Kurai we came to a log house for travellers and lunched there. In a few miles the Tchuja steppe came into view surrounded by mountains, most of which are covered with snow on their tops. The lower slopes are bare and gravelly, and the only wood was a few larches near the water. There are a good many ponds and overflows of the river, and abundant growth of willows in the flat near water. The plain seemed about forty miles long by fifteen wide, and there were very few yourts in the parts we saw. The grazing seemed very thin, but there were lots of horses and some sheep. I saw very few birds, some small pink finches, larks, and one or two eagles and kites, After a long ride of thirty-five versts we got to Kuch Agach, where there were a small church and custom house, and a few Russians who trade in wool; but the whole place was very poor and miserable, and everything round about was eaten off by horses.
On June 24th, having arranged for hunters and guides, we got off for the hills south of the Tchuja steppe with a party of ten Altai Tartars and twenty-three horses. The first three or four miles out of Kuch Agach was among lakes and branches of the river. On most of these lakes there were waterfowl, principally Ruddy Sheldrake, followed by their young, and Scoters, a very unlikely bird to be found here at such an immense distance from the sea. It turned out to be a Scoter which had hitherto only been found in the North Pacific, and I gave it to the Petrograd Museum. A few Eagles hang about these streams, and Kites were still, as they had been all through the Altai, the commonest bird of prey except Kestrels.
We passed a Mongol marmot hunter's camp by the way. He was a wild-looking fellow, dressed in sheepskin, and seemed to be living entirely on marmot's flesh, of which he had a large potful boiling on a fire of willow twigs. He let me take one of his best marmots to skin, but owing to lack of speech I could not find out much about the way he caught them; though I saw several places where deep excavations had been made to dig them out.
We spent several days in this district, hunting and collecting. One day I climbed up to the open flat top of a mountain, very much like a Norwegian fjeld at 4,000 feet, but with flowering plants as high as I went, perhaps 9,000 feet, Sax. oppositifolia being highest and most abundant, and very few mosses or lichens. From here I had a splendid view to the south, and could see, about seventy miles off, very high snowy mountains, which form the southern extension of the Altai range and are the source of the ​Kobdo and Irtisch rivers. I could also see an immense extent of high down grassy country to the south and east, and high snowy mountains to the north and west. But it was hopeless to get any correct geographic information from the natives when one had no reliable interpreter— Mr. Berezowsky returned from Kuch Agach—and the map was very bad. On the way back I joined the old route from Sock Karaul, the Chinese frontier post, to Kuch Agach, which was deeply marked in the ground though now little used. The frontier was marked by a large pile of stones, but no inscription or post on either side; and I believe the Chinese post was a day's ride or more to the south.
On the steep shaly side of a mountain I saw several Tetraogallus altaicus, which went off very wild. Once on the wing they can sail for a very long way without moving the wings, which for such a heavy bird is very remarkable. As they fly they utter a sharp call of one note. What such large birds live on, I do not know, but there are plants up to as high as I have been, wherever there is any soil.
In a small valley near our camp I collected at least a hundred species of plants. A very pretty large-flowered bright blue Scutillaria, a bright blue Corydalis, and lots of Primula like Panyi, were the best things. Up the side of the valley it became more rocky, and here, to my great surprise and joy, I caught Parnassius eversmanni, a species only known from Amurland and said to fly in peat-bogs. I saw four and caught three, all fresh out.
On July 13th I got the first letters I had had since leaving Moscow', and two papers, the latest dated May 30th. This was the turning-point for the expedition, and after a few days more of collecting, we started for Kuch Agach on July 19th. We met a lot of Kirghiz who were herding about 700 or 800 horses, on the milk of which, made into kumiss, they largely live. They had no tent and were all young men, rather easy in their manners. Unlike the Tartars we had, they would not touch vodka or tobacco, saying they were Mussulmen. They gave us very good kumiss out of a large leather bag, and offered us sheep cheese pounded into little bits out of a kid-skin bag. They were milking the mares, having tied up the foals first. Some had to be hobbled, some stood to be milked, but all had their foals held by them whilst a boy milked into a leathern bucket. They had two nearly full-grown young falcons, which had been taken from a nest near by on a steep mountain. I could not make out the species; they were too large for Peregrines, and much more the colour of Sakers. The Kirghiz train these falcons to catch foxes, and they say wolves too, but I doubt the latter story.
The hills just north of Kuch Agach were covered with a thick coat of fresh snow, which came within 500 feet of the plain. There were heavy storms of snow and thunder in the hills to the south, which, however, I escaped. When the sun came out a little, the dry plain was at once alive with large locusts, with grey forewings and the underwings black and crimson, about two inches long. The females were unable to fly and hopped about on the ground.
We spent the night of July 26th at Ulaghan, a small village, and next morning went to see the Saisan, or headman, who, though he has a good ​wooden house, prefers to live in a yourt. We found him ill with rheumatism, and left him some Elliman. His wife, a fat but well-favoured woman, entertained us with tea and boiled lamb, which was very good. They are, like many of the natives here, Christians, and we heard that a bishop had just passed through; so I suppose the Russian clergy do pay some regard to the aborigines, though as they are all nomads they must be hard to get at. We left after having spent an hour with the Saisan, whose relations and retainers all squatted near the door of the yourt, inside, while we talked through Joseph. There was evidence of a good deal of comfort, if not wealth, in this large yourt; but though there were mats and boxes all round, it was dirty enough, and had an open fire in the middle on which cooking was done.
On July 29th we made a long march down the Chanishman valley, which is a rocky gorge with high cliffs, topped by forested slopes about 2,000 feet above the river. The road was often very rough and stony over boulders, but sometimes over small sandy flats. It opened out in the evening into a plain about three miles long by one wide, at the lower end of which were several yourts, and some attempt at cultivation. Rye, now in flower, and spring bearded wheat were the crops grown, but they were very weedy. The people here seemed poor, but mostly Christians, and there were wooden graves with crosses in several places.
I did not get many butterflies, but there were a good many moths, and quantities of grasshoppers and locusts; also two species of dragon-fly which I had not seen before, but birds, excepting wagtails, were scarce. Next day we crossed the Bashkaus above its junction with the Chanishman, at a ferry; but as there were two boats, we unloaded, swam the horses over, and loaded up again, in little over an hour without mishap. There were some wooden houses on the west side inhabited by halfcastes. One of them, an ill-looking old man, agreed to let us have a boat with five men to take us from the end of the Teletskoi lake, which was fourteen miles further on, to its north-west end, about ninety versts, for thirty-five roubles.
Passing on without halting, we camped in a beautiful spot by the river, half-way from the junction to the lake. This stretch of the valley is one of the most beautiful Alpine valleys I ever saw, and completely different in its character from what it is higher up. The sides, though very steep, are densely wooded with birch and Scotch fir, and the herbaceous vegetation on the lower slopes and flats was the most luxuriant I ever saw in a temperate climate, except, perhaps, in some of the inner valleys of Sikkim. Bracken, which I had not seen before in the Altai, occurred, and tall ferns three or four feet high, with grass above one's middle, and Delphiniums, Spiræas and Thalictrum seven or eight feet high. This is probably owing to a moister climate, richer soil, and much heavier snowfall; for I noticed that the people who live here all make hay, and if they would utilise the mountain pasture, which few or none of them seemed to do, they might keep a great quantity of cattle.
We started at 7.30 next day, July 31st, on a beautiful morning, with a strong breeze from the south, and reached the lake in about two hours. Here we found a large clumsy boat and one or two huts, but no one living ​in them. It seemed strange that here, at the foot of a lake which in any other half-civilised country would be a principal means of communication, there were no Russian settlers and very few native inhabitants. After a little delay we had all our baggage stowed, and got away at eleven, after having paid off the men and horses that had brought us here. On the whole, the men behaved very well and had given no trouble. They were rather lazy but never cheeky, and Omok, who had been my daily companion for nearly six weeks, was really a very good man. The horses also had been very good, and though two or three times one had kicked off a load, we had no accident or damage worth talking of to our baggage all the time.
The lake had very steep shores, especially on the west side, for many miles, and we rowed four hours before we found a place where we could have camped. The mountains rose about 3,000 feet, perhaps more, and there was no track of any sort along the west shore. On the east there were a good many yourts on the hillsides, and a large valley came in at the south-east end. The boat was a heavy load for four men to row, and did not make above three miles an hour. We stopped in the afternoon, where a large forest came in on the west shore, to make tea. I tried to go up the shore a little way, but found the forest so very thickly grown with underwood—Rhododendron and Lonicera being the principal shrubs—that it was almost impassable. Fallen timber and great boulders, with swarms of mosquitoes, added to the difficulty, and there was not the faintest trace of man's presence, though I found traces of a bear. Growing under the pines were little beds of Cypripedium guttatum, past flower.
In the evening it came on rather gusty, and as the shore was very steep and the sea got up very quick, we had some difficulty in landing all right; but by great good luck we found a place flat enough to haul the boat up, and pitched our tent just before it came on wet. Next day we got off about 7.30 in the boat and rowed till nearly twelve, when we stopped to lunch. The forest was more open here, but the grass so long and wet that I could do no good. The flowers on the rocks by the lake were very pretty; a large-flowered dwarf pink aster being most conspicuous, and Saxifraga cordifolia being everywhere on the rocks.
I saw several times flocks of from twenty to a hundred Nutcrackers (N. caryocatactes) flying high along and over the shores of the lake, as though preparing to migrate, which they have been supposed to do, though before this I had always seen them as a solitary and resident bird. I also saw Ravens and Wagtails in the forest, and one Hazel grouse; also two Ospreys, but almost no ducks or water-birds. Common Sandpipers were the only birds on the shore.
About thirty miles from the south end the forest, facing north, was the most dense and impenetrable I ever saw out of the tropics; it was very rocky and full of large fallen trees, Pinus cembra, Larch and Spruce, being the commonest. The ferns, four feet high, and a dense jungle of Azalea, Red Currant, Raspberry, Saxifraga cordifolia and high grass, all growing up to one's waist—and higher among the fallen timber and boulders—made it almost impossible to move except very slowly. Where the vegetation was not so dense, Linnea borealis and many mosses covered the ground, but I saw no orchids here.
​On August and, we reached the west end of the lake where the river Bija, on which Biisk stands, runs out of it. Here there was a group of houses with one or two Russians, who had fishing-nets. There were some small clearings and one or two fenced fields of rye, and some attempts at making hay of the extremely rank grasses and herbaceous plants which exceed in luxuriance anything I had seen before. Wild Strawberries were ripe in the dryer spots, and Red Currants had a few small clusters of ripe fruit, but the Raspberries none.
About eleven the horses were ready to start. I had a very good one which carried me over twenty versts of the worst forest path I ever rode on without once making a mistake; though in some places he was up to his hocks in mud, and the path was full of sharp stones, roots and stumps. The forest had apparently once been all coniferous, as it still was on the south side of the lake, but had probably been burnt about thirty years before, and consisted of tall white poplars, sixty to eighty feet high and a foot in diameter, very large birch, with scattered Cembra, Spruce and Larch, but no Scotch fir. The track led over low hills, winding up and down, across swampy bottoms full of very tall, rank herbage: Delphinium, Nettles, Veratrum, Docks, Thalictrum and many common English plants, often higher than your head and always up to your waist. In consequence it was impossible to go much off the path, and as my pony was always inclined to go on rather than to stop, I could not do much collecting.
After three and a half hours' ride we got down to an open flat covered with grass and a few scattered Scotch fir, and after a couple of miles suddenly came to quite a civilised-looking village called Kabizan, the only one we had seen for seven weeks since leaving Ongodai. From Kabizan we went straight down the valley to Barnaul, where we arrived on August 9th, after three days' riding and three days' in carriages. We arrived at eight and found a good fast boat starting for Obi at 12.30, so we got our things on board and enjoyed the rest and good food after three days of jolting, dirt and discomfort.
As regards hunting, I was not very successful in the Altai, for though the wild sheep were numerous, they are admitted to be by all who have hunted them about the most wary, sharp-sighted, and difficult animals to approach, that exist. As I expected, from what I had heard from Mr. Littledale, who had been in the same mountains with Prince Demidoff, that as a rule one would have to take very long shots, I bought one of the then new Männlicher rifles at Berlin on my way out, and had it fitted with a telescopic sight. With this fixed ready to shoot, one could not crawl; and on several occasions I surprised sheep hidden among rocks or in hollows, which, if I had been on foot with my old Henry rifle, I could have hit as they bolted. But I was very much hampered by the telescopic sight, which I had not learnt to use, and which is by no means easy to manage unless one has plenty of time and is lying down, and I missed several shots that I ought to have got.
The native hunters always ride, and were so badly shod for walking that they always did ride until we had found our sheep, sometimes at great distances, which entailed very long detours to get the wind right, or to get into a position from which the sheep could be stalked.
​When lying down to rest, they always select positions from which they can see all round them, and the only way one could usually get within shot was from above. When feeding, they move over the ground much faster than deer, and often shift their position, so that you do not find them where you expect. And at fifty-two, at elevations of 8,000 or 9,000 feet, I honestly confess that I was not so willing to stay out late at night, as one must do in stalking, or so active on rocky and difficult ground. And the attractions of collecting butterflies, which were unusually numerous and interesting, in a region where no one had collected before me, were so strong that, after I had got two really good heads, I only went after sheep when the weather was too bad to collect.
Another difficulty with sheep is that, when a number of rams are lying together, it is very hard to pick out the best head. At a distance where you can examine them carefully, one may think one has done so; but when you get within shot, they are so much sharper in seeing you than stags are that you dare not use the glass, and cannot make out for certain which is the best head. As has been remarked by all hunters of wild sheep, in America as in Asia, they can see a man much farther off than deer; and, though they may be still till you are out of sight, will then move to some distance whilst you are making your approach.
Two days after leaving Kuch Agach, having seen some sheep in the neighbourhood, we went out stalking, and rode up the valley to a place where the river spreads out into a flat plain of gravel, which in some places was still covered with snow three or four feet thick. It was everywhere quite shallow enough to ford easily. After spying the ground in sight from this point and only seeing ewes, we rode up to the higher ground. The men, who were very fair stalkers and understood the use of a telescope, suddenly saw some rams and got the horses into cover at once.
After getting above them, we saw them lie down in the middle of a great flat, rather wet ground, near some ewes. There were eleven rams headed by a very good one. They soon left the flat and went out of sight. We went a long way round and much higher up to get out of sight of the ewes, and spied a lot of ground without finding them. I saw some more and got down within 400 yards, but could get no nearer. Then a heavy thunderstorm came on, as it seemed to do almost every afternoon in this country. The thunder moved the sheep, and the men wanted to wait till the rain was over. Before it stopped, however, Omok, the stalker, who had a very good idea of his work, went a little forward and suddenly beckoned me to come on. I loaded the rifles at once and went on, getting quite close to some ewes, but could not see the rams, which he seemed to think were more to our left. Anyhow, they got our wind, bolted, saw the horses, and crossed the glen about 200 yards off at a gallop, I had several shots, but missed. As I was going home we saw the eleven rams we had seen in the morning in a position where I could have got at them, but, as the wind was very changeable and it was late, I determined to leave them as they were, feeding quietly, and hoped to find them in the morning. We did not, however, find them again.
On another occasion, in the same district, we saw a large lot of sheep—I counted ​over thirty rams and a lot of ewes—on a high shoulder opposite. After a while they lay down in a position where I could get within about 300 yards of the nearest. As the wind was, the only chance was to go up and either wait till they fed, or try to move them. The hunters seemed to intend the latter plan, but did not succeed. After a hard climb up over shaly slopes with larger sharp stones which were difficult to cross, I got in sight of the farthest-off sheep, about 400 yards; but I knew that others were nearer, and did not dare to go further to see. We waited about an hour or more, expecting the other man to give them his wind, when a small ram's head suddenly appeared within twenty yards. I knew he would put the rest away, so I ran in till I could see the rest. They were all going off fast, but luckily I got one fair ram singled out, and hit him through the heart at about 150 yards. I had several more running shots, but was rather flurried, and though I hit one I could see no blood afterwards. When we got to the shoulder where the sheep had gone over, I saw my ram lying dead, and also some more big rams climbing up the steep rocky shoulder far above me.
I was very pleased at getting my first Ovis ammon. Though not a firstclass one—forty-three inches round the curve—he was a great leggy, ugly beast, just getting rid of the last of his winter coat, and with very short scrubby hair. The feet and legs were very big and strong. The weight was about sixteen stone clean. It was all that the hunter and I could manage to drag him a few yards up to the top, and then we got him in a snow gully and slid him to where the horses could reach him. The men packed the head and part of the meat behind one saddle, and the best of the meat on the other horse, and rode them home with this additional load as a matter of course. My hunter's grey pony was a wonder and showed more blood and shape than most of them. But the extraordinary thing was the way that the ponies' feet stood the constant work over sharp stones and rocks, and the wonderful way in which they never seem to put their feet wrong on rocky or boggy ground.
Mr. Elwes published an elaborate paper On the Lepidoptera of the Altai Mountains in the Transactions of the Entomological Society of London for 1889. In this he described 189 species, of which about thirty-nine are not found in Europe.