154 THE AMATEUR TRAMP IN SCOTLAND 



the Continent, on the other hand, you are not often 

 tempted in that way. There may be game in abundance 

 in some of those great forests forests that are really 

 set thick with trees in place of being bare hillsides, 

 lucus a non lucendo but it is relatively rarely that you 

 get a glimpse of it. And the sportsmen you come 

 across, with their tasselled game-bags and fringed 

 gaiters, with their short guns slung to their shoulders, 

 and their long-backed badger-hounds following at their 

 heels, seem to belong to distinct varieties of your 

 species, and to have got themselves up artistically for 

 scenes in " Der Freyschiitz." As for those ranges of 

 the High Alps, &c., that are thrown open to the 

 admiration and pedestrian achievements of the public, 

 in these the sport is mythical. We believe in the pre- 

 sence of troops of chamois in the Royal Bavarian 

 preserves that cast the shadows of their precipitous 

 terraces over the stillness of the Konigsee, and of 

 moufflons in the Piedmontese solitudes that are kept 

 sacred to his Majesty of Italy. Nay, we have had our 

 attention called to shifting specks on the Pyrenean 

 snow-slopes that, as we were confidently informed, 

 were izzards ; and in Switzerland we have eaten over- 

 poweringly savoury meat that was served as chamois- 

 venison, and suggested goat. But in the absence of all 

 sporting distractions, save the occasional whistle of the 

 marmot from among the beds of Alpine roses and the 

 boulder-strewn rocks, you can resign yourself abso- 

 lutely to the enjoyment of the changing and dissolving 

 views, and revel in the grandeur of the glaciers and 

 snow-fields. 



