44 ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE. 



Arrived at Odessa, my old chief and kind 

 friend, Mr. George Stanley, Her Majesty's Consul - 

 General there, received me with great kindness, 

 and to him and Mr. Mitchell I am indebted for 

 much valuable information and many acts of 

 attention. During the few days I stayed at 

 Odessa I had one very excellent day's snipe-shoot- 

 ing with Mr. Stanley on the Dnieper, during which 

 we bagged fifty- six snipe in an hour between 

 us. Of these, I am in honesty bound to admit, 

 that Mr. Stanley, whose hand had not forgotten 

 the cunning acquired in Egypt, bagged by far the 

 larger share. 



On our way home we had a specimen of the 

 driving of Russian yemstchiks, which would have 

 considerably lowered them probably in the esteem 

 of their ardent admirer Sir Robert Peel. Our 

 fellow seemed a little the worse for vodka, and as 

 soon as we got away from the house at which we 

 had been staying, we had proof that his looks did 

 not belie him. The bracing air roused his spirits ; 

 his horses were ' little doves ' and ' sons of dogs ' 

 in the same breath, his whip whirled about, and 

 tossing their heads in the air, the team (in which 

 there were two young ones) took the bit in their 

 teeth, and went away straight across the steppe, over 

 gullies, with a bump that would have smashed 

 any springs had there been any, down slopes 

 at a rate that took your breath away, and all 



