SPORT IN THE CRIMEA. 



in the Crimea must rough it to a certain extent, 

 but his roughing it, if he only has a civil tongue 

 and cheery manner, will be a good deal of the 

 ' beer and beefsteak ' order. The Russians are 

 hospitable to all men, especially to the sportsman ; 

 and the peasants, even the Tartars, are cordial 

 good fellows if taken the right way. 



On the steppes you need rarely want for a roof 

 overhead, if you prefer stuffiness, smoke, and do- 

 mestic insects to wild ones, with dew and the night 

 air. If you can put up with sour cream (very 

 good food when you are used to it), black bread, 

 an arboose, fresh or half-pickled, with a bumper 

 of fearful unsweetened gin (vodka) to digest the 

 foregoing, you need never suffer hunger long. But 

 for the most part sportsmen take then* food with 

 them. Perhaps if my readers will let me, it would 

 be better to take them at once on to the steppe, and 

 tell them all this en route. 



Imagine then that for the last two days you 

 have been hard at work out of office hours loading 

 cartridges with every variety of shot, from the 

 small bullets used for the bustard down to the 

 dust-shot for the quail. Here, in Kertch, take a 

 victim's advice : make your own cartridges, don't 

 buy them. The month is July ; the first of July, 

 with an intensely blue sky, far away above you, 

 giving you an idea of distance and immensity that 

 you could never conceive in England, where the 



