278 IN THE LAND OF THE BORA. 



After this I was content to remain idle for a 

 bit, or perhaps I should rather say I found suffi- 

 cient employment in the work of camp without 

 a servant. There is no doubt that there are 

 drawbacks to the presence of a man in camp, 

 but there are also advantages in the possession 

 of a servant, especially in wet weather. This, 

 however, we were not experiencing ; indeed, we 

 only had sixteen wet days in four months in this 

 camp, and, after all, the freedom of the life and 

 the novelty of doing for one's self are " the 

 cream of the thing," as Josh Billings says of 

 love-matches. 



The next time I went out I had a couple of 

 borrowed beagles with me, and my intention was 

 to try for a roebuck. In this I was unsuccessful, 

 but ere long I heard the hounds running high 

 up, and guessed they had come on an outlying 

 chamois. This, of course, was no good. Long 

 before I got there he had gone up into the pre- 

 cipices ; and this happened twice. At last I came 

 towards that part of the hill where I had my first 

 success. Below that snowfield lies a belt of beech 

 wood, and I decided to try an approach this way, 

 the dogs having disappeared. I had not got very 

 far up when I came on the fairly fresh traces of 

 a bear, and not a couple of minutes later I heard 

 the now familiar alarm- whistle of a chamois behind 

 me. Turning round, I saw a large single one 



