48 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



knew what excellent hunting-grounds all this neighbour- 

 hood afforded ; for though it belonged to the Crown the 

 whole mountain-range had been rented by a gentleman, 

 who, by carefully preserving 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 fores- 

 ters stationed in all parts; young active fellows, and 

 moreover excellent 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, the Count, 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 

 I have enjoyed the privilege of shooting for the last ten 



any one but a hunter, and one who loves the chase, and of whom I 

 am persuaded beforehand that he will understand and sympathize with 

 what I suffer." 



* 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 bet- 

 ter sportman to be found than Count A., and that such a state of things 

 could only be brought about in so short a time by his excellent manage- 

 ment. He had twenty-four gamekeepers, all picked men, fellows as fear- 

 less 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. 



