THIRTEENTH DAY. 207 



" Well, but here I am ! " There he was most assuredly, but 

 he could not give us back our lost hour. 



We now set off, my brother-in-law and I sitting in the 

 same cart, and again exposed to the frightful torments caused 

 by the too immediate proximity of our Slavonian coachman, 

 our only solace being the beauty of the weather, for it had 

 stopped raining during the night, and we felt refreshed and 

 invigorated by this fine fresh morning with its light mists, 

 which almost reminded us of an October day. 



We urged our driver to do his very best, and by a constant 

 thrashing of his cat-like horses he very soon managed to bring 

 us into the Kovil forest. 



On getting near the Sea-Eagle's nest, at which I had vainly 

 waited yesterday, I stopped the cart and got out, while my 

 brother-in-law drove on to the Imperial Eagle's nest, where he 

 had shot the female, and at which he now proposed to watch 

 for the male. 



I stole cautiously through the bushes up to the Sea-Eagle's 

 dwelling, but hardly had I got within measurable distance 

 of it, when both the eagles rose and circled round, screaming 

 loudly. 



The unpunctuality s of the forester had thus frustrated my 

 plan of hiding myself near the nest very early, while the 

 eagles were away on their first foraging expedition, a daily 

 event which always occurs immediately after sunrise, and I 

 arrived just at the moment when they had finished giving the 

 young birds their morning meal. This is precisely the most 

 inauspicious moment, for both the old birds have by that time 

 already breakfasted, and after attending to their parental 

 duties, sit lazily on the trees near their nest, and there is then 

 no chance of success, especially with a pair of eagles which 

 have had their wits somewhat sharpened. My prospects were 

 therefore most unfavourable when I betook myself to my place 

 of concealment in a thick bush. 



