38 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



" On what day was it that it happened V* 

 " On the 17th of October. I had, as you know, shot 

 four stags already ; but to have witnessed this desperate 

 battle, and to have shot both the combatants, attended, 

 too, as the circumstance was, with such peculiar inci- 

 dents, — that was the crowning piece of good fortune." 



When once the stag has joined the hinds he does not 

 quit them. He walks continually round and round the 

 herd, keeping them together and preventing even a single 

 one from leaving him. A stag will sometimes have twelve, 

 fifteen, twenty, or even more hinds with him, and proud- 

 ly but despotically he moves among them, like a sultan 

 in his serail. His blood is boiling in his full veins ; his 

 passion consumes him, and he flies to the pool, not to 

 assuage his thirst, but to cool the fire that is burning 

 within him. He rolls in the shallow water and lays him- 

 self in the slimy bed ; and when he rises reeking from 

 the mire, his back and sides and throat are covered with 

 it, and the long hair of his neck is matted together like 

 a thick and tangled mane. He eats little or nothing 

 now. Ever and anon he stands still, and by a low, deep, 

 hollow sound, that seems to come from his very inmost 

 being, and tells of consuming pain and longing, will he 

 give vent to the feelings that goad and torture him. I 

 know no sound to which I could liken it.. It is not a 

 roar, nor a bellowing, but a rumbling sound, approaching 

 perhaps nearer to a deep, long-drawn-out groan than 

 aught else, which at last is, as it were, hurled forth two 

 or three times, in a short, quick, impatient manner. At 

 early morning, while the stars are still watching, you 

 may hear the hollow tone from the hill-side, and, if you 

 do not know what it is, might perchance fancy it came 

 from the bowels of the earth, and that the mountain was 

 inwardly convulsed by elements at strife with each other. 



