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2IO ADVENTURES IN TIBET.
to place one of them in a fatal spot in the head of a gigantic
yak, whose portrait I herewith reproduce. On another
occasion an inquisitive wolf met with the same fate.
This part of Tibet was literally honeycombed with the
burrows of marmots. They are very comical creatures,
those big, stoutly-built rodents, when, either alone or in
couples, they sit sunning themselves on the heap of soil
at the entrance to their holes. When we approached,
they greeted us with shrill whistlings from every hillside,
and tumbled into their burrows like billiard-balls. In
fact, we were literally hissed off the stage by these over-
critical spectators. One old patriarch, who had wandered
farther than was prudent from his home, lay on his back
sunning himself on the hillside with his fore-paws crossed
over his stomach in an excruciatingly funny attitude.
Yoldash dashed down upon him and disturbed his siesta,
and whilst the old gentleman was defending himself, the
men seized him and bound him, and packed him away
uninjured on the back of a camel. We kept him two
months and tried to tame him ; but it was no use. No
sooner did anybody approach him, than he sat up on his
hind legs and showed his sharp teeth. The bite of this
animal is said to be very difficult to heal. When we gave
him a stick, he bit it to splinters. In camp we kept him
fastened to a short iron rod, the other end of which was
tied with a rope to a stake driven in the ground. He was
thus able to range in a circle all round the stake, and every
evening he began to make a hole in the ground. If he
served no other purpose, he at any rate amused the men
by his comical antics whenever we encamped. He
manifested a deadly antipathy to our dogs, which, how-
ever, never nlolested him.
Kulans were now numerous, and I never grew tired
of watching the perfection of their slender forms and their
elegant movements. Six individuals came one day^quite
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