358 THE HUNTING GEOUNDS 



echoes of the report died away in the distant hills, 

 they would settle down in the same place without 

 taking alarm, although each discharge brought down 

 about a dozen of their number. The bag that might 

 be made may be estimated from the fact that 1 killed 

 in one day in a jheel near the foot of the Abassadagh 

 Mountain, fourteen miles from Tshamshira, thirty- 

 four brace of woodcock, eleven couple of snipe, seven 

 geese, and sixty-one ducks ; and could have continued 

 the slaughter, were it not that the villagers, for whose 

 benefit it was intended, declared that they could not 

 carry more away. I think I must have flushed that 

 day at least a hundred brace of cock, besides snipe 

 innumerable. I hope my reader will not imagine 

 from this account that I at all countenance or am in 

 favour of such wholesale destruction as a general 

 thing ; but it must be remembered that at this time 

 I had many mouths to feed, that food of any kind 

 was at a premium, and I had nothing in store ex- 

 cept mouldy Turkish ration biscuit, full of weevils 

 and other such indescribable animalculse. 



The climate, soil, and magnificence of scenery 

 render the east coast of the Black Sea one of the 

 most beautiful and interesting countries in the world. 

 It is abundantly irrigated by numberless rivers flow- 

 ing from the mountains, and the valleys are extremely 

 fertile, producing cotton, rice, wheat, millet, Indian 

 corn, hemp, flax, and quantities of excellent grasses, 

 with little labour ; yet the inhabitants are generally 

 poor, holding in contempt agriculture and all em- 



