ON PLAIN AND PEAK 



by a pile of luggage, might have been seen standing 

 on the platform one November evening. From the 

 way in which one of them a short fat man was 

 fussing about after the aforementioned luggage, 

 Mr. Sherlock Holmes (if he had been there) would 

 probably have " deduced " that he was a servant ; 

 and, from the number of gun-cases, he might have 

 concluded that some one intended to kill something. 

 In both deductions he would have been correct : 

 three of the passengers were the Prince, " the 

 Sun," and myself ; the fourth was the Prince's man- 

 servant ; and we had come there to shoot chamois. 



Chamois, as most people are aware, are found 

 in all the higher mountain chains of Central and 

 Southern Europe. But it is in the Austrian Alps 

 that the greatest number exist In the whole range 

 of the Alps some 1 1 ,000 chamois are shot every 

 year, and of this total over 8,000 are killed in 

 Austria. 



From mediaeval times a kind of superstitious 

 halo has always surrounded this mountain antelope ; 

 for an antelope it is, and not a goat as many persons 

 imagine. Probably more fabulous stories and 

 quaint legends have been told, and believed in, 

 with regard to it, than of any other beast or bird. 

 Thus we are gravely informed, by writers of the 

 last century, that its curved horns are largely used 

 in the ascent and descent of the precipices among 



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