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 Eagles, which 

 the birds had torn from each other in lighting 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 jagers 

 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 



