ss than a horse, but when you see him wild and free on the salt
plains of Tibet, the difference between him and an ass seems even
greater than between an ass and a horse. My own horses and mules seemed
sorry jades by the side of the "kiangs" of the desert.

On one occasion my Cossacks caught two small foals which as yet had no
experience of life and the dangers of the desert. They stood tied up
between the tents and made no attempt to escape. We gave them meal mixed
with water, which they supped up eagerly, and we hoped that they would
thrive and stay with us. When I saw how they pined for freedom, however,
I wanted to restore them to the desert and to their mother's care. But
it was too late; the mothers would have nothing to do with them after
they had been in the hands of men, so we had to kill them to save them
from the wolves. Thus strict is the law of the wilderness: a human hand
is enough to break the spell of its freedom.

We cannot travel back to India without having become acquainted with the
huge ox which runs wild over the loftiest mountains of Tibet. He is
called "yak" in Tibetan, and the name has been transferred to most
European languages. He is closely akin to the tame yak, but is larger
and is always of a deep black colour; only when he is old does his head
turn grey. The tame yak, on the other hand, is often white, brown, or
mottled. Common to both are the peculiar form and the abundant wool.
Seen from the side, the yak seems humpbacked. The back slopes down from
the highest point, just over the forelegs, to the root of the tail,
while the neck slopes down still more steeply to the scrag. The animal
is exceedingly heavy, strong and ungainly, and the points of the thick
horns are often worn and cracked in consequence of severe combats
between the bulls.

As the yak lives in a temperature which in winter falls below the
freezing-point of mercury (-40 deg.), he needs a close warm coat and a
protective layer of fat under the hide; and he is, in fact, so well
provided with these that no cold on earth can affect him. When his
breath hangs in clouds of steam round his nostrils he is in his element.
Singular, too, are the fringes of wool a foot long which skirt the lower
parts of his flanks and the upper parts of his forelegs. They may grow
so long as to touch the ground as the yak walks. When he lies down on
the stone-hard, frozen, and pebbly ground, these thick fringes serve as
cushions, and on them he lie