INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. O 



was quick of foot had been despatched immediately to 

 inform his Highness of the event. Such was the infor- 

 mation contained in the head-forester's hastily written 

 note. What excitement was there then, and what hopes 

 and questionings ! As I look back on those days, I can 

 hardly believe that all is now over, that the forests are as 

 deserts, no longer peopled by their red inhabitants — 

 that these, like the Red Indian of the prairie, have been 

 hunted down and exterminated, and their haunts, once 

 so full of life, become silent and lonely. 



I think it would be quite impossible for me to describe 

 the sensations, the exquisite delight of that delicious 

 time. The freshness of the morning, the deep stillness 

 of the woods at noon, the green and golden pageantry as 

 the sunbeams pierced through a thousand crevices in the 

 leafy roof, the breathless expectation when a light foot- 

 fall told me the forest king was approaching — everything, 

 in short, that belonged to the hunter's life was full of 

 pleasurable sensations. But soon even these delights were 

 to give way to others still more exciting. Our party during 

 the shooting season was usually joined by two gentlemen 

 who went regularly to the mountains to hunt chamois. 

 Often of an evening, after a day in the forest, and while 

 we all were sitting over oar coffee after dinner, they 

 would relate some adventure that had befallen them 

 while watching for a strong buck high up among the 

 snowy fastnesses of Berchtesgaden, or tell of the merry 

 life they led on the less formidable mountains and in the 

 Senn Hiitten* of Baierisch Zell ; while on another occa- 

 sion our very blood would almost curdle, as we listened 

 and heard how one of them had crept along the narrow 



* Senn Huite, the same as "Chalet." The hut inhabited by the 

 herdsmen and the dairymaids during their summer sojourn on the 

 mountain. 



