TENTH DAY. 167 
southern slope, along a wretched road, and halted near a spur 
of the mountain which jutted out a good way towards the 
valley of the Save. This was a singularly beautiful point, 
for to the left we beheld extensive clearings, surrounded on 
all sides by forests, and to the right, below the hills, lay 
wooded valleys, terminating in fields and meadows, so that 
we were quite close to the most southerly slopes of this steep 
mountain-range. 
It took me another quarter of an hour to walk through a 
thin oak wood before I got to a pulpit-like projection of the 
mountain, with almost perpendicular sides. On the very top 
of this stood a huge and extremely old oak, incredibly broad, 
but very low, a tree of that variety so common in Northern 
Hungary which always grows laterally instead of vertically, 
and whose trunks get thicker and thicker, but never attain 
any height. 
While still a long way off I could see on its topmost 
branches a great grey-brown nest, with a Cinereous Vulture 
standing in it ; and at our approach the bird flew slowly off, 
being followed by its mate from the interior of the nest. I 
was now lost in admiration of the marvellous knowledge of 
birds displayed by one of these keepers, who, on seeing the 
vultures, said to me that these were the little hawks which 
he had always seen here; for, as well as I could understand 
him, by the help of Bohemian, the Cinereous Vulture was, in 
his estimation, a smaller and less important bird than the 
Imperial Eagle. 
Concealing myself as well as I could close to the stem of the 
nesting-tree, I waited to see what would happen, the forester 
and the local keepers meanwhile going back some distance to 
hide themselves: I had now leisure to take an accurate survey of 
my surroundings, and saw through the tree-tops a pretty good 
view of the luxuriantly green valley of the Save, through 
which the mighty river wound in sharp curves, and of the 
