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and down for a quarter of an hour. Twice an ichneumon 

 put its head out close to the guns, but no one could fire for 

 fear of his neighbour, and the cunning beast, recognizing the 

 danger it was in, let itself be driven backwards and forwards 

 by the dogs, but would not leave its safe cover ; so, as time 

 was pressing, we had to whip off the dogs and continue our 

 journey without getting it. 



Our road led us to a short branch line of rail used for 

 transport purposes, which runs from the factory at Abouksor 

 to the largest of the sugar-cane fields. 



We stopped an engine that was passing by, and got into an 

 empty truck that was attached to it, thus reaching Abouksor 

 very speedily, while our Arabs rode down between the rails 

 at full gallop, and followed us up with incredible quickness. 



Having still some time to spare, we resolved to try another 

 beat through the cane-field which we had driven the first day, 

 so we hastily got together as many beaters as possible and 

 surrounded it. 



The beat had only just begun when a wolf broke at a corner 

 near one of the guns; but there were such a number of people 

 loafing about that he could not shoot while the beast was near, 

 and when he did fire both barrels it was too far away. 



A few moments later another sportsman shot an enormous 

 wolf, the largest we had as yet bagged, just at the instant 

 when it was crossing a path which ran through the field, and 

 before the beat was finished two other guns each shot a wolf, 

 and a Woodcock was missed. 



We now left the field, which had afforded us better sport 

 than when we had first hunted it three days ago. At the 

 station there was a row of six Wolves laid out, all shot in one 

 day ; and if we had also got the wounded ones we should 

 have had quite an extraordinary bag. 



On the whole, we had every reason to be satisfied with the 

 proceeds of our shooting- excursion into the oasis of Fayum, 



