On August and, we reached the west end of the lake where the river Bija, on which Biisk stands, runs out of it. Here there was a group of houses with one or two Russians, who had fishing-nets. There were some small clearings and one or two fenced fields of rye, and some attempts at making hay of the extremely rank grasses and herbaceous plants which exceed in luxuriance anything I had seen before. Wild Strawberries were ripe in the dryer spots, and Red Currants had a few small clusters of ripe fruit, but the Raspberries none.
About eleven the horses were ready to start. I had a very good one which carried me over twenty versts of the worst forest path I ever rode on without once making a mistake; though in some places he was up to his hocks in mud, and the path was full of sharp stones, roots and stumps. The forest had apparently once been all coniferous, as it still was on the south side of the lake, but had probably been burnt about thirty years before, and consisted of tall white poplars, sixty to eighty feet high and a foot in diameter, very large birch, with scattered Cembra, Spruce and Larch, but no Scotch fir. The track led over low hills, winding up and down, across swampy bottoms full of very tall, rank herbage: Delphinium, Nettles, Veratrum, Docks, Thalictrum and many common English plants, often higher than your head and always up to your waist. In consequence it was impossible to go much off the path, and as my pony was always inclined to go on rather than to stop, I could not do much collecting.
After three and a half hours’ ride we got down to an open flat covered with grass and a few scattered Scotch fir, and after a couple of miles suddenly came to quite a civilised-looking village called Kabizan, the only one we had seen for seven weeks since leaving Ongodai. From Kabizan we went straight down the valley to Barnaul, where we arrived on August 9th, after three days’ riding and three days’ in carriages. We arrived at eight and found a good fast boat starting for Obi at 12.30, so we got our things on board and enjoyed the rest and good food after three days of jolting, dirt and discomfort.
As regards hunting, I was not very successful in the Altai, for though the wild sheep were numerous, they are admitted to be by all who have hunted them about the most wary, sharp-sighted, and difficult animals to approach, that exist. As I expected, from what I had heard from Mr. Littledale, who had been in the same mountains with Prince Demidoff, that as a rule one would have to take very long shots, I bought one of the then new Männlicher rifles at Berlin on my way out, and had it fitted with a telescopic sight. With this fixed ready to shoot, one could not crawl; and on several occasions I surprised sheep hidden among rocks or in hollows, which, if I had been on foot with my old Henry rifle, I could have hit as they bolted. But I was very much hampered by the telescopic sight, which I had not learnt to use, and which is by no means easy to manage unless one has plenty of time and is lying down, and I missed several shots that I ought to have got.
The native hunters always ride, and were so badly shod for walking that they always did ride until we had found our sheep, sometimes at great distances, which entailed very long detours to get the wind right, or to get into a position from which the sheep could be stalked.
