178 FIFTEEN DAYS ON THE DANUBE. 
Before going away we determined to make a close in- 
spection of the place, and descending the moraine clambered 
about the various pinnacles. Both rocks and stones were 
all thickly covered with droppings, especially with those 
of eagles and vultures ; for it seemed to be a place where 
the birds were in the habit of taking a siesta after dinner. 
Bones of birds and other vertebrate creatures, and castings of 
wool, were lying round about ; and we found a good deal of 
hair and some fragments of a dismembered roe. I also 
collected some fine wing-feathers of the Cinereous Vulture 
and the down both of the Sea- and the noble Hagles, which 
the birds had torn from each other in fighting for their 
perches. 
Having finished our inspection, we went back to the glade 
by the same route, and after looking about a little while 
found the carts and the saddle-horses. Giving the jigers 
directions to follow us in the former, and taking our guns 
and cartridge-bags, my brother-in-law and I mounted the 
ponies and trotted down the steepish path, under the guidance 
of Count Chotek’s trainer, who followed us on a third pony. 
We soon lost sight of the carts, and had a very interesting 
ride, sometimes trotting and sometimes galloping, along the 
crest of the mountain, and then uphill and downhill through 
valleys, forest-glades, and most beautiful beech woods. The 
ponies went capitally at the quicker paces, and it was a 
singular sight to see the riders tearing through the quiet 
solitudes of these woods, with their guns and cartridge-bags 
slung over their shoulders. 
The weather had meanwhile cleared, the clouds had 
broken up, and the sun from time to time poured its fierce 
rays upon the earth. After a good long ride we had got 
utterly astray, and found ourselves in a magnificent valley 
which we had never before visited. To the left it was 
bounded by wooded slopes, and. to the right by a long bushy 
