THE CHAMOIS ill 



and a skilled man could throw them with fatal effect a distance 

 of forty steps. The great mediaeval sportsman, Emperor 

 Maximilian, has left us some quaintly worded descriptions and 

 pictorial representations of chamois stalking and its dangers. 

 He was undoubtedly the first to use the unwieldy ' fire -tube ' 

 weighing 20 or 22 Ibs., with its forked prop and fuse which 

 was carried in the hand, and which had to be lighted with 

 steel and flint before game hove in sight. The only bit of 

 advice smacking of our own luxury-loving much-beservanted 

 sport four centuries later, is the quaint remark of the royal 

 sportsman : ' that it is a convenient thing to have at one's side 

 a trusty man with good lungs to keep the fuse alive.' 



