s soft and warm.

On what do these huge fleshy animals live in a country where, broadly
speaking, nothing grows and where a caravan may perish for want of
fodder? It often happened that we would march for several days together
without seeing a blade of grass. Then we might come to a valley with a
little scanty hard yellow grass, but even if we stayed over a day the
animals could not get nearly enough to eat. Not until we have descended
to about 15,000 feet above sea-level do we find--and then only very
seldom--a few small, miserable bushes; and to reach trees we must
descend another 3000 feet lower. In the home of the wild yaks the ground
is almost everywhere bare and barren, and yet these great beasts roam
about and thrive excellently. They live on mosses and lichens, which
they lick up with the tongue, and for this purpose their tongues are
provided with hard, sharp, horny barbs like a thistle. In the same way
they crop the velvety grass, less than half an inch high, which grows on
the edges of the high alpine brooks, and which is so short that a horse
cannot get hold of it.

On one occasion I made an excursion of several days from the main
caravan, accompanied by only two men. One was an Afghan named Aldat. He
was an expert yak-hunter, and used to sell the hides to merchants of
Eastern Turkestan to be made into saddles and boots. We had encamped
about 600 feet higher than the summit of Mont Blanc, and the air was so
rarefied that if we took even a few steps we suffered from difficulty in
breathing and palpitation of the heart.

When the camp was ready, Aldat came and asked me to look at a large yak
bull grazing on a slope above my tent. As we needed flesh and fat, I
gave him permission to shoot it and to keep the hide. The bull had not
noticed us, for he was to windward, and thought of nothing but the juicy
moss. Water melted from the snow trickled among the stones, the wind
blew cold, and the sky was overcast--true yak weather. With his gun on
his back, Aldat crept up a hollow. At last he pushed himself along on
his elbows and toes, crouching on the ground like a cat prowling after
prey. At a distance of thirty paces he stopped behind a scarcely
perceptible ridge of stones and took careful aim. The yak did not look
up, not suspecting any danger. He had roamed about for fifteen years on
these peaceful heights near the snow-line and had never seen a man. The
shot cracked out and echoed among the mountains. The yak j