that they have been known for at least 450 years. — V. 'Izzat Ullah, who travelled as a 'Pundit' in the employment of Moorcroft, mentions that Khotan is said to abound in wild asses, wild camels, cattle, and musk-deer.[1]—VI. Mr. R, Shaw, in his 'High Tartary': 'The Yoozbashee says they (lyre-horned antelopes), go in large herds, as do also wild camels (?) in the great desert eastward' (p. 168). — VII. Sir Douglas Forsyth, in a letter which he wrote to me from Shahidullah, on his last mission to Kashgar, mentioned that the officer who met them there had shot the wild camel in the Desert of Turfàn. It was a good deal smaller than the tame camel. — VIII. The same gentleman in the printed report of his mission gives more detailed evidence, apparently from another native informant, which I quote below.[2] IX. Mr. Ney Elias also received strong and repeated evidence of the existence of wild camels north of the Thian Shan 'from intelligent Chinese travellers, as well as from the native Mongols . . . Many of the former, who declared they had seen these animals between Kobdo and Ili, Uliassutai and Kuchen, I questioned as to their being really wild, or having become so subsequent to domestication; but the answers were always emphatically that they had never been tame . . . . Moreover, the wild camels were always
- ↑ J. R. As. Soc., vii. 319.
- ↑ 'The wild animals of Lob are the wild camel. . . . I have seen one which was killed. . . . It is a small animal, not much bigger than a horse, and has two humps. It is not like a tame camel; its limbs are very thin, and it is altogether slim built, I have seen them in the desert together with herds of wild horses. They are not timid, and do not run away at the sight of a man. They do nothing unless attacked; they then run away, or else they turn and attack the huntsman; they are very fierce, and swift in their action as an arrow shot from the bow; they kill by biting and trampling under foot, and they kick too like a cow. They are hunted for the sake of their wool, which is very highly prized, and sold to the Turfàn merchants.'—Rep. on Mission to Yarkand in 1873, p. 53.
The word applied to the wild horse mentioned here is Kulan, which is the Turki name of the Tibetan Kyang, more properly a species of wild ass. This équivoque is probably at the bottom of the many mentions of wild horses; but I would not say so positively.
