CHAPTER V
BIRDS AND BEASTS
FROM a sportsman's point of view, Yamen is disappointing. It may be divided broadly into districts where game goes and you can't, and districts where you can go and game won't. The former are the wilder and less populated regions, where Ottoman rule is not, and the tribesmen have no close season for the stranger within their gates if once he strays abroad ; the latter comprise the populous and well-cultivated highlands of central Yamen, where the Turks still hold their ground, and the mild husbandmen will do no more than covertly set their village pariahs at you. An occasional panther or hill-leopard may be found in some secluded and almost inaccessible ravine, but four-footed game has almost ceased to exist, except for far-seeing gazelle that range the plains and flee at a thousand yards. There are far too many breech-loading rifles in Yamen for any beast of the wild to keep its confidenceTand continue to exist. As for feathered game, apart from rock-pigeons, which abound in certain districts, there are but two representatives of regular occurrence—that king of sporting birds, the black-headed chikore, found among the upper heights, and the blue-wattled guinea-fowl, which ranges the plains between the foot-hills. Both these birds