another's discomfiture.

To clear the dust from one's throat and shake off the depression caused
by weeks of waiting in the same place, there is nothing like a day's
shooting or exploring in the neighbourhood of Phari. I get up sometimes
before daybreak, and spend the whole day reconnoitring with a small
party of mounted infantry. Yesterday we crossed a pass which looked down
into the Kongbu Valley--a likely camping-ground for the Tibetan troops.
The valley is connected to the north with the Tuna plateau, and is
almost as fertile in its lower stretches as Chumbi. A gray fortress
hangs over the cliff on the western side of the valley, and above it
tower the glaciers of Shudu-Tsenpa and the Gora Pass into Sikkim. On the
eastern side, at a creditable distance from the fort, we could see the
Kongbu nunnery, which looked from where we stood like an old Roman
viaduct. The nuns, I was told, are rarely celibate; they shave the head
and wear no ornaments.

Riding back we saw some burrhel on the opposite hills, too far off to
make a successful stalk possible. The valley is full of them, and a week
later some officers from Phari on a yak-collecting expedition got
several good heads. The Tibetan gazelle, or goa (_Gazella
hirticaudata_), is very common on the Phari plateau, and we bagged two
that afternoon. When the force first occupied the Jong, they were so
tame that a sportsman could walk up to within 100 yards of a herd, and
it was not an uncommon thing for three buck to fall to the same gun in a
morning. Now one has to manoeuvre a great deal to get within 300 yards
of them.

Sportsmen who have travelled in other parts of Tibet say the goa are
very shy and inaccessible. Perhaps their comparative tameness near Phari
may be accounted for by the fact that the old trade route crosses the
plateau, and they have never been molested by the itinerant merchants
and carriers. Gazelle meat is excellent. It has been a great resource
for the garrison. No epicure could wish for anything better.

Another unfamiliar beast that one meets in the neighbourhood of Phari is
the kyang, or Tibetan wild ass (_Equus hemionus_), one or two of which
have been shot for specimens. The kyang is more like a zebra than a
horse or donkey. Its flesh, I believe, is scorned even by
camp-followers. Hare are fairly plentiful, but they are quite
flavourless. A huge solitary gray wolf (_Canis laniger_) was shot the
other day, the only one of its kind I have seen.