Page 213 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

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THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF ASIAN GAME 191
Now, since those facts must be true as reported, do they not in them- selves constitute a severe arraignment of the Indian government ? Why- should that state of game slaughter endure, when a single executive order to the C. O. of each post would effectually stop it?
In the making of game preserves, or "sanctuaries" as they are called out there, the Government of India has shown rare and commendable diligence. The total number is too great for enumeration here. The native state of Mysore has seven, and the Nilgiri Hills have sanctuaries aggregatingabout100,000acresinarea. IntheWynaadForest,myold hunting-grounds at Mudumallay have been closed to bison shooting, because of the alarming decrease of bison (gaur) through shooting and disease. TheKundahForestReservehasbeenmadeapartialgamepre- serve, but the door might as well have been left wide open as so widely ajar.
In eastern Bengal and Assam, several game preserves have been created. On the whole, by the diligence and thoroughness with which sanctuaries, as they are termed, have been created quite generally throughout India, it is quite evident that the government and the sports- men of India have become thoroughly alarmed by the great decrease of the game, and the danger of the extermination of species. In the past India has been the finest and best-stocked hunting-ground of all Asia, quite beyond compare, and the destruction of her once-splendid fauna of big game would be a zoological calamity.
Tibet.—As yet, Tibet offers free hunting, without legal let or hin- drance, to every sportsman who can climb up to her lofty, wind-swept and whizzing-cold plateau. The man who hunts the Ovis poll, superb creaturethoughitbe,paysinfullforhistrophies. Theibexofthesouth 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 Consvd 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