48 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



I already knew what excellent hunting-grounds all 

 this neighbourhood afforded; for though it belonged 

 to the Crown the whole mountain range had been 

 rented by one of my friends, who, by carefully pre- 

 serving the game for a year or two, and by the excellent 

 order he maintained, had greatly enhanced the value 

 of the chase. He had his own foresters stationed in 

 all parts ; young active fellows, and moreover excel- 

 lent chamois-hunters, who understood their duty well, 

 and did it. Just as all was in high perfection and 

 the game abundant, those political changes took place 

 which gave the right of shooting to every individual 

 of the community. In order somewhat to diminish his 

 pecuniary losses, my friend Count Arco, to whom the 

 chase belonged, ordered that the game should be shot 

 by his own people rather than by the poachers; and 

 venison became so plentiful that it fetched but three- 

 pence, twopence, and even a penny a pound*. But 

 in the plain it was exactly the same. In the exten- 

 sive forests of the Prince of Tour and Taxis, with whom 



* The circumference of the chase was about sixty English miles. 

 The Count calculated that in a few years he would be able to shoot 

 there every year three hundred roebucks, eighty (warrantable) stags, 

 and one hundred chamois. It must however be said, that there is 

 not a better sportsman to be found than Count Arco, and that such 

 a state of things could only be brought about in so short a time by 

 his excellent management. He had twenty-four gamekeepers, all 

 picked men, fellows as fearless and daring as they were excellent 

 hunters. In the short time that the chase was in the Count's hands, 

 they had shot seven poachers in conflicts with them. One of the 

 keepers, he who had killed four, was himself shot soon afterwards at 

 Berchtesgaden. The neighbourhood of the Tyrol was the cause of 

 this influx of poachers. They would come across the frontier at the 

 Kaiser Klause and Fallep, and were at once on Bavarian territory. 



