Stalking the Ovis Poli With Gun and Camera

A Journey From Himalaya to Himalaya with Colonel Roosevelt and His Party

COREY FORD

EDITOR'S NOTE:—It is with the keenest ediytonal pleasure that Vanity Fair is privileged to offer below what constitutes undoubtedly the least authentic account of the recent Roosevelt big game hunt through Central and Southern Asia. Mr. Corey Ford, the author of this illuminating treatise, is probably the world's foremost living authority on ovis poli, and is remembered as the author of Political Prospects in the Himalayas, The Love Life of a Goiter-ed Gazelle and Travels with a Donkey. In the ensuing article Mr. Ford throws light on various activities of certain members of the party which might otherwise, either through oversight or else pure modesty, be omitted from the Colonel's forthcoming books, motion pictures, scientific lectures, Chatauqua speeches and other political propaganda

"IT WAS early in April, a little over a year ago, that our brave expedition left New York Harbour amid the excited tooting of horns and blowing of whistles, and a shower of well-wishes and other hard objects from friends on shore; and proceeded directly to Bombay, where our caravan was already assembled.

I shall never forget the inspiring picture we presented upon our departure from Bombay. The sun shone bright and clear overhead and the bul-buls were singing happily in the syringas or engaging in bul-bul-fights in the gutter, as our great caravan gathered in the square before the hotel, their eager faces lit with the prospect of adventure. In the immediate foreground Colonel Roosevelt was seated upon his elephant, his white helmet tilted back upon his forehead to disclose the keen, piercing eyes staring toward the horizon, the jaw thrust forward in a gesture of determination that boded ill for the ovis foil in the far-off hills.

For a moment no one stirred. The Colonel sat tense, motionless, his eyes fixed in space, his left fist clutching his trusty Express rifle and his right waving a small American flag. The dramatic silence was broken by the sudden click of the newspaper cameras; whereupon the Colonel, with a sigh of relief, clambered down from his elephant, handed his cork helmet to an attendant and stepped into his waiting automobile. We were off!

Having progressed by easy stages to Srinagar, the rifles and equipment following by freight, we now trekked over the first range of the Himalaya Mountains to the Zozzi la (pass), a desolate tract of snow and ice devoid of any sign of human habitation. Seizing our binoculars we gazed about us eagerly. What a sight met our eyes! To our right and to our left extended an unbroken vista of ice and snow, while before us and behind us a flat stretch of snow and ice reached to the very horizon. We took several photographs of this remarkable scene, with the Colonel in th,e foreground.

Here we made our first bivouac (camp), the Colonel having been informed that any scientific expedition that is a scientific expedition invariably gets lost the first few days out, and remains hidden until the United States Government sends an airplane in search, filled with newspaper reporters. Accordingly, as soon as we were safely hidden, we waited for three days, giggling to ourselves, at the end of which time a member of the party sent a cable to the State Department to count to one hundred and then come find us. The State Department promptly cabled back: "Why?" and so the game was called; but if they had come we had a dandy hiding place between two Himalayas, where they would never have seen us. Another good game is Anagrams.

Despite this initial disappointment we continued bravely on our way, crossing the first range of the Himalayas to Lch, the capital of Ladak. Our main objective was the famed ovis foil, a sort of sheep which lives on barren, treeless plateaus and is seldom seen in captivity, owing to the fact that it is so hard to catch, and even if it were easy to catch nobody would want it. At Koordha we saw our first specimen; but our joy was short-lived, for we learned that in the summertime these animals shed their hair and consequently are next to impossible to mount or preserve as specimens. Despite the fact that this ovis foil was shedding his hair like sixty, the Colonel attempted to mount him; but he had no sooner swung one leg over the saddle than he was thrown violently to th.e ground. Fortunately lie alighted on a stump and was unhurt; but we decided to avoid further accident by returning later when he had finished shedding. After carefully marking the rock with an "X" where the ovis foil was standing, we proceeded again on our way.

Game was now growing plentiful in the hills; and we had no end of fun shooting the rare Goitered Gazelles (gazella thyroid). In the event of attack these harmless creatures simply crouch down behind their goitre, rendering them practically invisible to the casual eye. The finest specimen of the trip was bagged bv Kermit, a beautiful female with tender brown eyes and a goitre fully 76 inches across—the largest known to science outside of a Mrs. f. Kartoffel Mceblcs of 124 Wilgus Avc., New Brunswick. This magnificent specimen was later removed from the gazelle and placed in a wheelbarrow, and Kermit was photographed standing beside it, holding a large placard which read: "This goitre was grown in Thibet: The Land of Opportunity."

Another rare capture in the Thicn Shan Mountains was the Asiatic Wapiti, a strange deer which derives its name from the noise it makes whenever it inadvertently steps off a Himalaya and tumbles wapiti! wapiti! warn! down to the bottom, where it lies on its back stupidly blinking. Nothing is known of the home life of the wapiti, beyond the fact that it has none; but the Colonel was particularly interested to learn that it is a cousin of the American bull-moose, the latter a favourite game of his father's. The Colonel formed a Wapiti Party on the spot.

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It was also during our explorations into this section that the Colonel first discovered the odd Bulbawala, or penguin-snake; and his kindness to this reptile, in the instance I am about to relate, is just one more example of that sympathy with dumb animals which has made him the popular leader of his party that he is today.

The Bulbawala lives entirely on the eggs of penguins; and this pathetic snake has trouble enough as it is, what with no penguins for several hundred miles; but in addition, since the penguin egg is fully twice again as large around as the snake, he is faced with the additional problem of swallowing the egg once he has discovered it. Yet after this poor penguin-snake has finally managed to get the egg down, his difficulties have really only begun.

In order to get any sort of nourishment at all, the penguin-snake must now solve the problem of breaking the egg. In the first heat of his enthusiasm, with a square meal inside him once he can get at it, he will probably try to gulp a rock down hard, usually without success. Colonel Roosevelt says he knows of no sadder sight than a forlorn penguin-snake swallowing pebble after pebble and slowly losing his appetite in a vain effort to smash the hard shell.

If this pebble method fails, the disappointed penguin-snake then climbs up into a tree, crawls far out on a branch, and drops to the ground with a dull thud, in hopes of landing on the egg and, God willing, smashing it. Penguin-snakes have been known to climb up trees and drop out of them onto their stomachs over and over again for hours, only to crawl home at dusk, black and blue all over, bearing the sad news of an undigested meal to the tired little woman at the door.

As a last resort, the penguin-snake usually goes about tying himself into knots and drawing himself tight, until he has smashed the egg that way. The danger here is that the snake will find he is unable to untie himself again, once he has smashed the egg, and will die of indigestion.

Colonel Roosevelt, upon being apprised of this pathetic situation, instantly ordered a number of holes bored in assorted sizes and placed at convenient points throughout the Himalayas. It was the Colonel's idea that the snake would crawl through a hole smaller than the egg, and consequently either the egg would smash or the snake would experience a dandy new sensation.

The Colonel was equally charitable to the Asiatic Ant-Eaters, or "scrumps", placing quantities of insect powder at their disposal so that they could kill the ants after,, they had eaten them.

It must not be thought that the Colonel remained idle during these scientific discoveries, or lost sight for a moment of the real purpose of his trip. Time and again, when the more irresponsible members of his expedition were wasting their time stalking the Gooral or Himalayan chamois, or the Markhor (a beautiful creature with light grey hair, a close-cropped black beard and checkered golf socks), the Colonel with a serious face would sit before his staff photographer for hours, assuming appropriate poses beside the specimens which the rest of us had brought back to camp the night before. Often we returned home from the hunt to find this solitary figure seated at his typewriter, already writing the account of our adventures for the Times. His steadfastness of purpose was an inspiration to the party.

It was in the Russian Pamirs that we got our first ovis poli. I shall never forget the thrill of that moment. It is such an experience as a man has but once in a lifetime. We were awakened at dawn by the eager cry of "Nian!" (ovis poli); and the camp was instantly plunged into utter confusion. The Colonel, with rare presence of mind, drew on his nail-studded hunting boots, his white helmet and the long red beard, which we all wore on the trip, slung a telescope over his shoulder, and knelt in the door of his shuldarree (tent), his 500-bore Express rifle in his hand. Following his example, we all dressed rapidly in our hunting costumes (or "trek-suits", as we called them) and knelt behind him, guns in hand. The day could not have been more ideal for our purpose; the sun shone directly upon our faces, so that no feature remained in shadow. Our group was perfectly arranged, the four tallest natives standing in the rear, the rest of us kneeling before them, while Kermit reclined gracefully at our feet, resting on his elbow, with his forefinger laid alongside his cheek. In the center the Colonel, a smile on his grim face, stared directly into the camera. For a moment the photographer hesitated.

"No nian?" (where's your ovis poli?), he asked us at length.

With a shrug of irritation at this oversight the Colonel directed one of the natives who was not busy to climb up the mountainside, from which he returned shortly bringing a splendid specimen. This was placed between the Colonel's knees, and the first of our prize captures (with horns 54/2 inches long, the largest seen in a dozen years) was shot and dispatched to the rotogravure sections at once.

As soon as this had been attended to, we proceeded to skin the ovis poll and cook it, a delicate job requiring rare patience and skill, which was accomplished with great success by Crisco, our camp cook. The ovis poli was first cut up into small pieces, washed, salted, and placed in a large cauldron with some spinach, where it was allowed to simmer for several hours, at the end of which time we threw away the ovis poli and ate the spinach. The Colonel pronounced this rare dish delicious.

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After crossing the perilous Karakoram Pass, the party descended the mountains to Turkestan and followed the Yarkand River northeast to Aksu, where we climbed the dangerous Muzart Pass; and it was here that the Colonel had the narrow escape from annihilation which was mentioned briefly in the dispatches, but concerning which for some reason he himself seems rather reluctant to speak. The Colonel, who is of an adventurous nature and whose selfconfidence had been considerably augmented by this trip, conceived the idea of attempting to scale Mount Albany, which,.next to Mount Washington, is the highest peak in all the Himalayas and has only been visited in the past six years by one man, a Governor Smith.

I shall never forget the parting scene. The Colonel was mounted on Gop, his favourite elephant, and was clad in a loose-fitting coat belonging to his father. Higher and higher he climbed, while his party followed behind, our hearts filled with mis givings.

Suddenly, before anyone could stop him, the Colonel's foot accidentally overturned a treacherous round stone called by the natives do-hee-neh or The Tea Pot. As this obstach bounced down the hill, it loosened : huge quantity of dirt, which fol lowed behind it in a veritable land slide, descending with a roar upor the Colonel and completely covering all his followers as well, until th entire party was practically bidder from sight.

It was with considerable difficulty, that the Colonel managed to extricate himself from the dirt, rise to his knees brush off his father's coat and make his way painfully to firmer footing Yet his confidence is so little shaken that he is already determined upon a second attempt to scale this peak in the near future, a feat from which his closest friends seek in vain to dissuade him.

"I am ready," he insists, "for a fight or a frolic."