Tibet.—­As yet, Tibet offers free hunting, without legal let or hindrance, to every sportsman who can climb up to her lofty, wind-swept and whizzing-cold plateau.  The man who hunts the Ovis poli, superb creature though it be, pays in full for his trophies.  The ibex of the south help out the compensatory damages, but even with that, the list of species available in southern Tibet is painfully small.  The Mitchell takin can be reached from China, via Chungking, after a long, hard journey, over Consul Mason Mitchell’s trail; but the takin is about the only large hoofed game available.

The Altai Mountains, of western China, contain the magnificent Siberian argali, the grandfather of all sheep species, whose horns must be seen to be believed.  Through a quest for that species the Russian military authorities played upon Mr. George L. Harrison and his comrade a very grim and unsportsmanlike joke.  At the frontier military post, on the Russo-Chinese border, the two Americans were courteously halted, hospitably entertained, and prevented from going into the argali-infested mountains that loomed up before them only a few miles away!  The Russian officers said: 

“Sheep?  Why, if you really want sheep, we will send out some of our brave soldiers to shoot some for you; but there is no need for you to take the trouble to go after them!”

After Mr. Harrison and his comrade had spent $5,000, and traveled half way around the world for those sheep, that is in brief the story of how the cup of Tantalus was given them by the Russians, actually at their goal!  As spoil-sports, those Russian officers were the champions of the world.

Seven hundred miles southeastward of the Altai Mountains of western China, guarded by the dangerous hostility of savage native tribes, there exists and awaits the scientific explorer, according to report, an undiscovered wild horse.  The Bicolored Wild Horse is black and white, and joy awaits the zoologist or sportsman who sees it first.  Evidently it will not soon be exterminated by modern rifles.

The Impenetrable Forests.—­Although the mountains of central Asia will in time be cleared of their big game,—­when by hook and by crook the natives secure plenty of modern firearms,—­there are places in the Far East that we know will contain big game forever and a day.  Take the Malay Peninsula, Borneo and Sumatra as examples.

Mr. C. William Beebe, who recently has visited the Far East, has described how the state of Selangor, between Malacca and Penang, has taken on many airs of improvement since 1878, and sections of Sarawak Territory are being cut down and burned for the growing of rubber.  Despite this I am trying to think that those developments menace the total volume of the wild life of those regions but little.  I wonder if those tangled, illimitable, ever-renewing jungles yet know that their faces have been scratched.  White men never will exterminate the big game of the really dense jungles of the eastern tropics; but with enough axes, snares, guns and cartridges the natives may be able to accomplish it!