BLACK SEA COAST. 79 



myself, I never quite recovered until I had slain 

 a veritable wild boar long afterwards. The fact 

 was, this wretched animal had broken out of his 

 sty some months previously, and betaken himself 

 to the forest to take his fill of love, chestnuts, and 

 other pleasant things. He had apparently been 

 making too free with the lady friends of his black- 

 skinned brethren, and at the moment at which we 

 arrived was doing battle with two of them for his 

 offences. In the dark his own master had not 

 recognised him, so that there was ample excuse 

 for me, and there was even a good side to this 

 mishap, inasmuch as we were all getting very 

 tired of roe-deer's flesh, and this forest-fed bacon 

 was a grateful change. Dragging him home with 

 a sapling affixed to his snout, was the poorest part 

 of the joke. 



During the next day I did not recover my 

 spirits sufficiently to try for big game, so the 

 German colonel and myself devoted it to pheasant- 

 shooting. The covert consists of thick reed-beds, 

 the birds are of the original stock from which our 

 English birds are derived, and in no way differ from 

 them in size or appearance. We killed very few, my 

 dog proving utterly useless in thick covert, in 

 consequence of which I gave her away on the first 

 opportunity. I had no right of course to expect 

 that she as a pointer would be useful in covert, so as 

 the quails had gone and I should have very little 



