316 THE IMAGE OF WAE 



realm. Though only about the size of a small Eng- 

 lish county, it has its own sovereign, its own arch- 

 bishop, its own parliament, and its own army (four 

 companies). It has, too, its own Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer — the happiest being of his kind in the 

 world, for is he not confronted with a perpetual 

 surplus, which not even the most ingenious methods 

 of wasting public money can convert into a deficit ? 

 It was, however, its fauna which attracted me to the 

 country, or rather, such of them which can no longer 

 be found in our English woodlands — the wolf and the 

 boar, but especially the latter. As a matter of fact, 

 I found that the descriptions, on the faith of which 

 I had gone there, were greatly over-coloured. I had 

 pitched my tent — or, more literally, taken rooms in 



an old chateau — in the town of F . At an early 



period of my stay I had discovered that the native 

 sportsman by no means extends the same welcome 

 here to the wandering Britisher that he meets with in 

 most European countries.^ Although there was plenty 

 of poaching everywhere, I very soon learnt that the 

 attention of the local forester was concentrated upon 

 my doings — no doubt with a view to backsheesh, 1 

 need hardly say that I laughed at the idea, as I 

 confined my operations strictly to my own shooting, 

 except on the few occasions on which I was invited 

 elsewhere. Nevertheless, as far as extraordinary 

 sport went, it was a winter thrown away. 



The season was over, and I was thinking of re- 

 commencing my wanderings when a Prussian forester 

 sent me a little dachshund bitch on trial. One day 

 ■ I had been for a walk, and was returning by the 

 high-road, when my attention was drawn to an angry 



1 A conspicuous exception is described in chapter xiii. 



