258 IN THE LAND OF THE BORA. 



incidents of other days which possess independent 

 interest. 



At the time I went to the Velez I may say I 

 was absolutely without any knowledge of chamois- 

 shooting, or of the ground I was going to shoot. 

 It is true I had, I may almost say accidentally, 

 shot a chamois the previous January, as already 

 related ; but this had not added anything to my 

 woodcraft, which was purely second-hand, and did 

 not prove of the slightest use to me. Since then 

 I have carefully read a well-known Austrian 

 authority on the subject; and, though I must 

 agree with almost everything he says,* I cannot 

 conceive any of it being useful to a beginner. 

 Another disadvantage, or what some might con- 

 sider so, lay in the fact that I invariably went 

 alone, and consequently was unable to avail my- 

 self of local knowledge as to the resort of the 

 game, and that very important matter local wind 

 and currents of air. I did so partly from the 

 feeling that I have always had that the essence 

 of sport is to pit one's self against one's game ; but 

 also much from the knowledge that stalking has 

 never been practised in this country (was said, 

 indeed, to be impossible), and therefore I should 



* He says the hollow pointed bullet is unsportsnian-like, 

 a dictum with which no Englishman will agree. The title of 

 the book is " Das Waidwerk in Oesterreich," but I forget the 

 writer's name. 



