3 8 CRASNOI LAIS. 



thirds acted only as scarecrows to the game. The 

 sport was good and wild enough in itself, but poor 

 and without charm as compared to the still hunt 

 of the night before. 



Arrived at the forester's house, the hares were 

 given as wages to the beaters, who exchanged their 

 skins for vodka from some neighbouring drinking 

 shop, and made a vast stew of the carcases. 

 AVith an enormous bonfire blazing, they made them- 

 selves merry on this rough fare until late into the 

 night, dancing wild, graceful flings and reels, and 

 singing national songs, in which a tone of melan- 

 choly and depression seemed to run through the 

 warlike character of a border ballad. 



The whole scene was one which Turner's 

 pencil might have gloried in, but no pen could do 

 justice to the wild figures in their ragged sheep- 

 skins and mountainous hats of many-coloured wool, 

 lit up by the long red flames, and backed by the 

 hoary forest heavy with its months of snow. 



In the morning before leaving Crasnoi Lais we 

 saw a very curious instance of the sagacity of 

 wolves. A herd of roebuck had settled down in 

 fancied security in a hollow in the midst of one of 

 the forest sections. A pack of wolves had dis- 

 covered them there, and when we came in the 

 morning the forester showed us plainly by their 

 spoor their method of attack. At every few hun- 

 dred yards round the entire circumference of the 



