Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/97

 round the herd, slowly narrowing the circle with repeated halts, or else to ride on one flank at a foot's pace, gradually edging the herd towards the ambush.

The natives have another mode of hunting dzerens. A Mongol, mounted on a quiet and well-trained camel, rides over the steppe. On seeing antelope he dismounts, and leading his camel by the bridle quietly approaches the herd, concealing himself as much as possible by keeping step with the camel. At first the antelope are startled, but seeing only a camel quietly browsing, they allow the hunter to approach within a hundred paces, or even nearer. Towards the end of summer the dzerens are very fat, and are eagerly hunted by the Mongols for the sake of their delicate flesh, and also for their skins, which are made into winter clothing. The nomads, however, rarely wear the skins themselves, but sell them to Russian merchants at Urga or Kiakhta. Dzerens are also snared in traps made in the shape of a shoe, of tough grass (dirisun). When caught by the leg in one of these, the animal lames itself in its struggles to get free, and is unable to move.

The dzeren have even a more deadly enemy than man in the wolves. Whole herds, according to Mongol description, meet their death from these. And they are also subject at certain periods to epidemics, which, as I myself witnessed in the winter of 1871, commit great ravages among them.

It was on our way to Kalgan, some 230 miles from Urga, that we first saw the dzeren. I need not dwell on the impression produced by the first sight