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Show 1894.] ON THE WILD CAMEL OF LOB-NOR. 447 occasionally saw more tracks, but we never beheld the animal in the flesh till the 16th day; we were then in the most forlorn country imaginable, not a blade of grass for our animals was to be had, and water was only procurable about every second day. The country was totally uninhabited, the nearest settlement being Abdul on the Tarim Biver near Lob-Nor. A few marches back we saw Kyang occasionally, and now and then the track of a Tak or a sheep, but in this dismal place there was nothing. W e had seen on the rocks and stunted shrubs patches of camel-hair, and as these tracks became more numerous our hopes rose. On the morning of the 19th June I had stayed behind with one man to follow up some tracks, and Mrs. Littledale had gone on ahead with the other. The latter discovered two camels and tried to shoot them before I came up. Fortunately luck favoured me, and I was able to get them both. Finding a small quantity of water in some rocks a couple of miles from where the camels lay, we stopped a day to clean and dry the skins and the skeleton, as I was anxious to bring complete specimens home for the South Kensington Museum. On examining the skulls we found the nostrils were full of soft grubs, about 1| inch in length ; they must have been very disagreeable tenants. W e put some of these into spirit and brought them home along with other specimens. Wild Camel of Lob-Nor. (From the mounted specimen in the British Museum.) On the next march we saw another pair of camels, but the wind was wrong, and I could not get a shot. Soon after this we saw |
