MR. ST. GEORGE LITTLEDALE’S BAG OF OVIS POLI, 1888

Let me recall one day out of my 1890 expedition, as another sample of Poli shooting I have done. We had camped at the end of June by Victoria Lake, which was still three parts frozen, and after a short and fruitless hunt had recrossed to the Alichur Pamir. The weather was changeable and the wind shifty, but our sport had been fair. One stormy evening I spied three rams a long way off. Before we reached them, a flurry of snow hid them from us, and when the snow cleared we could not see them. We decided that they must have gone over the hill for shelter, but on looking for them they unfortunately got our wind, and bolting out from some rocks dashed across an open piece of ground. I put the 200 yards sight up and fired at the centre one, which was a monster, towering above its two companions, and altogether by far the biggest sheep I had ever seen—its horns, I should fancy, certainly measuring something over 70 ins. I saw the dust fly beyond just over its back, and had no time for a second shot before the sheep disappeared in a dip of the ground. I felt low at missing such a grand fellow, but it was a running shot at quite two hundred yards, and a hit would have been more or less of a fluke.

As they were a very long time coming up the other side of the ravine, we went to see what had kept them, and found that the two smaller sheep were waiting for the big fellow, who was lagging wearily behind. As soon as they had got over the ridge we followed them and found their track, which was very bloody. My bullet, instead of going over my beast, must have gone through him without expanding, and it was not long before we found him lying down on a snow bank which was streaked with his blood. Here I could have stalked and finished him, but for the excitement of one of the Kirghiz, who showed himself and made the beast get up again. After this he kept lying down at intervals, travelling a shorter distance and resting longer each time.

The vitality of Ovis Poli is something extraordinary. Here was a beast shot through the lungs, as was proved by the frothy blood which poured from his wounds, and yet he went eight hundred or a thousand feet up a snow slope. Having allowed him to get out of sight we followed him, but just as we reached the top of the slope a heavy storm coming on obliterated everything in six inches of fresh snow. As soon as the storm was over, numbed and cold though I was, I tried to follow by kicking the new snow away with my feet till I found blood, but eventually I lost the ram and had to leave him. It was a terrible disappointment, for I fear I shall never look upon his like again. My attention had now to be turned to my Kirghiz companion, who had been taken violently sick and lay there unable to move. I had no brandy to give him, and not even a coat to wrap him up in, for we had left our sheepskins at the bottom of the hill. However, I rubbed his hands vigorously, and after a time he recovered sufficiently to descend leaning upon my shoulder. I believe it was nothing but the height which affected him, and, extraordinary as it may seem, two other Kirghiz who regularly spent four or five months in every year on the great Alai, as their forefathers had done before them, had been completely knocked up a few weeks before this by the two or three thousand feet additional elevation at which they found themselves with me, and had been compelled to leave the Pamir. They are a careless happy-go-lucky race, these Kirghiz, easy to offend as children, but as ready to ‘make it up,’ and quite harmless if well handled. On life they set but little store; but the words of one old chief as he handled my rifle are still in my ears. ‘Ah,’ he said, with a sigh, ‘and even the man who made that gun must die.’

CHAPTER XIII
CAMPS, TRANSPORT, ETC.

By Clive Phillipps-Wolley