DO.NG. lillOT. The wild yak of Tibet, the fiercest of all known ruminants. It will rarely allow a num tO escape alive if it can come up with him. It is generally hunted on horseback, the great aim being to detach ono from the herd. It affects open grassy places, and goes itt large herds. Int favourite pasturages being ascertained, in the midst of these the It/Inters, who are on foot, throw up circular enclosures of stone a few yards apart, the hunter taking up a position in ono of them. When a dong is withitt shot, the hunter, having fired at hitn, instantly quits his enclosure for another ; for as SOOn as the animal hears the shot, whether he has heel] hit or not, he, guided by the smoke of the discharge, rushes furiou.sly on the enclosure, and commences knocking it to pieces. 1Vhen the hunter gets another shot at him, he retires again from his shelter to a fresh enclosure, and so on till he has killed his game. The ordinary size of the dong is four times that of the domestic yak ; it is black all over, having occasionally a white streak in the forehead. The horns of a full-grown bull are said to be three feet long, and the circumference must be immense.
The common mode of describing it is to throw out the elbow, bring the fingers to the ribs, and point to the circle thus formed as the size of the base. It is used by the grandees of Tibet at marriages and other feasts, when it is filled with strong drink, and handed round to the company. Nothing more comtnendatory of the host's jovi ality can be said, than that he regaled his guest out of the dong's horn. The horns so used are finely polished, and mounted with silver or pia and precious stones. It is common in a Tibetan guompft (Lamaserai) to see a stuffed (long standing in front of the image of Maha Kali, at whose shrine tho animal is thus figura tively sacrificed ; axes and othert instruments of sacrifice are ranged around the image. Strange that Buddhists should preserve this feature of Hinduism in their places of worship ; not more so, however, than, as Hue describes, that a lama should nearly 1;0 into fits on seeing a louse from his tunic impaled for the microscope, while the whole of his countrymen and co-religionists are among the greatest slaughterers and consumers of animal food in the world.