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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
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CHAP. XXXII. THE PLATEAU OF PAMIR
177
[With reference to .Wood's remark that the horns of the Ovis Poli supply shoes for the Kirghiz horses, Mr. Rockhill writes to me that a Paris newspaper of 24th November, 1894, observes : " Horn shoes made of the horn of sheep are successfully used in Lyons. They are especially adapted to horses employed in towns, where the pavements are often slippery. Horses thus shod can be driven, it is said, at the most rapid pace over the worst pavement without slipping."
(Cf. Rockhill, Rubruck, p. 69 ; Chasses et Explorations dans la Région des Pamirs, par le Vte. Ed. de Poncins, Paris, 1897, 8vo.—H. C. ). ]
In 1867 this great sheep was shot by M. Severtsof, on the Plateau of Aksai, in the western Thian Shan. He reports these animals to go in great herds, and to be very difficult to kill. However, he brought back two specimens. The Narin River is
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Ovis Poli, the Great Sheep of Pamir. (After Severtsof.)
" 1 hi a grant znüntittxb e b e moutrrit zanbagtz . fie zunt granbîznte, .car .out I.e,e
.contez zix pattnte$ " . .
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stated to be the northern limit of the species.* Severtsof also states that the enemies
of the Ovis Poli are the wolves, [and Colonel Gordon says that the leopards and wolves prey almost entirely upon them. (On the Ovis Poli, see Captain Deasy, In Tibet, p. 361.)—H. C.]
Colonel Gordon, the head of the exploring party detached by Sir Douglas Forsyth, brought away a head of Ovis Poli, which quite bears out the account by its eponymus of horns " good 6 palms in length," say 6o inches. This head, as I learn from a letter of Colonel Gordon's to a friend, has one horn perfect which measures 65i inches on the curves ; the other, broken at the tip, measures 64 inches ; the straight line between the tips is 55 inches.
[Captain Younghusband [ 1886] " before leaving the Altai Mountains, picked up several heads of the Ovis Poli, called Argali by the Mongols. They were somewhat
41,
* [" The Tian Shan wild sheep has since been described as the Ovis Karelini, a species some-
what smaller than the true Ovis Poli which frequents the Pamirs." (Colonel Gordon, Roof of Me World, p. 83, note.)—H. c.]
VOL. I. M
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