116 FIFTEEN DAYS ON THE DANUBE. 
valley. I crept cautiously up to it, and from the slope on 
which I stood had a good view into it. 
The Black Stork was standing on one leg within its dwelling 
and took not the slightest notice of my approach. My shot 
dropped it dead into the nest; so I called up Hodek’s climber, 
whom we had taken with us, but he was unsuccessful in all 
his attempts to get up the trunk of the tree, for the recent 
rain had made it very slippery, and it was not until the 
following day that a wretched half-crippled peasant of Cerevié 
brought down the bird. 
When I got back Count Chotek told me that if I had come 
down a few minutes before I could have easily shot a “Stein” 
Eagle, which had flown quite low over the cart. The Count 
and my jiiger had seen it settle down on a meadow a few 
hundred yards away in the direction of the above-mentioned 
decoy-hut; so I stealthily crept along under the crumbling 
bank of the brook, thinking that the bird would be sitting on 
the skeleton of the horse, but as I slowly crawled out of the 
hollow within good shot of the skeleton, the eagle rose in 
front of me from the opposite side of the stream, where it had 
probably been drinking and bathing. It was already about a 
hundred paces away, and the shot which I let drive at it had 
no effect. 
We now set out again, first driving back some distance 
along the valley, then turning to our left into a wretched 
forest-track, and keeping on in the same direction across a 
long clearing for nearly an hour and a half. The way was 
steep, and so rough in the dry parts that one could hardly 
keep one’s seat in the cart, while in the shaded places pits 
and almost bottomless pools had been formed in the deep 
loamy soil. 
The endurance and cleverness of the horses were amazing, 
for the drivers, who, according to the custom of the country, 
had got down to lighten the loads, had been left far behind, 
