THE SABLE HUNTER.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2293, 5 January 1900, Page 6

THE SABLE HUNTER.

It is to be wondered whether the elegant lady wrapped so snugly in her winter fun gives a thought, even a passing one, to the subject as to where that magnificent sable skin which she wears arotind her neck origiaally came from. Up in the great watershed dividing Siberia and Mongolia lives a peculiar race of people haif Chinese, half Thibetans. Few Europeans have ever seen them; in fact, with the exception of one or two enterprising explorers or geographical enthusiasts who have crossed the Altai range, European eyes have never gated upon the aboriginal Syots of the Northern Mongolia. •

Yet these peculiarly clad, peculiarly looking people supply a goodly quantity of the finest sables to the fur markets of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Paris, and London. Maybe that the very sable skin around my lady's neck was once the sport of some half clad nomad, and was probably shot with a gun made from a piece of gas pipe plugged up at one end, and the bullets formed of small stones.

Sable hunting in the Siberian mountains and Northern Mongolia is confined almost exclusively to the Syots and other native races, and it would surprise a good many fur dealers in England to know the prices which are paid by the Siberian traders to these poor aborigines for the skins they collect. The Syots are, with the exception of the pig-tail and the iowing garments, very much Chinese. They are heathens of the first degree, and sinee their whole life is spent on the desert or in the trackless forest their numbers are unknown and their mode of living an equal mystery. Somehow or other, however, they have begun to realise that afar off the belt of mountains there lives a people to whom sable skins are precious, and here the law of supply and demand comes in, for the Syots have established themselves as sable hunters, and live almost exclusively on the oroceeds of the chase. The Siberian trader, knowing his market, makes periodical journeys into Mongolia. It is safe to say he does not take a kopeck of money with him, but he drags behind him a well-stuffed caravan loaded with tea, tobacco, gunpowder and shot, string of beads for the women, and roughly made mocassins for the men. In due course he will come across a Syot encampment. The trader sits on his waggon and barters cheerfully. With the eye of a connoisseur and with fingers ren dered deft by long practice, he sees and feels the smooth warm skin of the little animals.

This small black one—well, a two-ounce packet of tobarco is enough for that. That Urge black one—a handful of shot and an equal quantity of gunpowder. A packet of tea for a lovely skin with a long black stripe down the centre. This one, a fine skin, but a little bit hurt by the shot ente iDg the back —well, say a string of beads for that. The Syota are jubilant, skin after skin goes off for beads, tobacco, or tea. The women decorate themselves and dance with childish glee. The men immediately make papires with their tobacco and smoke until they reel. An old tin can is put over the fire, and tea is made. The aborigine with the powder and shot is the envy of his tribe. Everybody is satisfied, and away goes the trader again on his return journey, toiling for many days over the moutain passes, until at length he strikes the hard road, acd ultimately reaches some centre of Siberian civilisation. In their original undressed state it is safe to say that the skins do not cost the Siberian trader much more than a few pence each on the average. As the poor sable travels further westward, hovever, he gets dearer and dearer. In Tomsk one can buy very good sables for something like five or six roubles, about 13s. In Omsk few are sold under ten roubles—£l Is. In Moscow 100 per cent, goes on. In St. Petersburg no one except the middle class or a functionary would wear a sable under five pounds. ■ In |>aris and London a real Siberian sable skin will fetch anything up to twenty pounds, but the imitation sables of the present day have done muck to depreciate this wonderful trade. ~

It is said that no honest Siberian wiil allow a Syot to get within twenty paces of him, and bargain hunters will frequently argue with a Syot at that respectable distance. The reason of this peculiarity may be gathered when it is said that no true Syot has ever been known to wash.