344 Incidents of Foreign Field Sport. 



examination, which was a desideratum, as I had 

 with me some 20 Ibs. of Schultze powder and about 

 2,000 cartridges. Powder in Syria is a contraband 

 article, and a monopoly of the Government as it is in 

 France. When my Schultze was expended I could 

 only get vile Greek black powder by smuggling ; 

 but it was better than nothing. During the season 

 1878-79 I explored more than I shot. I had 

 great difficulties to contend against, the worst being 

 my own ignorance of Arabic. Fortunately the head 

 of the Telegraph Department was a young fellow, 

 very fond of shooting, and who spoke almost equally 

 well English, French, Italian, Turkish and Greek and 

 Arabic. I induced him to chaperon me, so I bagged 

 several hundred couple of cock, a gazelle, geese, 

 hares, two kinds of partridges francolins quail, sand 

 grouse, and a few florikan. But when the season of 

 1879-80 commenced, I found game far more 

 plentiful ; but knowing the localities may have had 

 something to say to this, and besides, such a winter 

 had not been seen for eighteen or twenty years. 

 Fortunately we had purchased an American stove, or 

 I think we should have been frozen to death in 

 rooms built to exclude tropical heat, and not to 

 endure an Arctic winter. The jungle on the hill- 

 tops, the hills, their sides and valleys, were covered 

 with deep snow, so woodcock swarmed into the 

 olive groves almost in the centre of the town, and it 

 was computed that in three or four days the Arabs 

 and Greeks alone, killed upwards of 3,000 of these 

 birds. I was not idle. Thus my stock of Schultze 

 powder was exhausted; I have used it since 1870. 

 No vessels would bring it out, the secretary was not 



