HUNTING WITH DOGS. 147 



attention from us. This done, we busied our- 

 selves in getting the skins of the game we had 

 killed ready to send away, as a boat had been 

 seen passing a day or two before, and having been 

 signalled to, had promised, if possible, to call on 

 its way back from Sotcha. It called to-day, took 

 our skins on to Kertch, and left us a good supply 

 of tobacco, the want of which we had hitherto 

 keenly felt. 



Another visitor turned up to-day to our utter 

 surprise (for visitors are rare at Golovinsky) the 

 head gardener from the Grand Duke Michael's 

 forest of Ardenne, who had been out hunting for 

 two days and taken nothing. With him was a 

 Greek from a colony somewhere near, who com- 

 plained bitterly that though he and his fellow 

 colonists had spent most of their nights about 

 harvest- time on platforms or trees, to shoot at and 

 scare the bears and boars, these gentry had com- 

 pletely destroyed the crop of ' koukourooz ' (maize), 

 on which the Greek villagers greatly depend. 

 When I found that in spite of the number of 

 guns in the trees, not one bear or boar had been 

 killed, I was not so much surprised at Bruin 

 coming to look upon the noise as merely a military 

 salute intended in his honour, which in no way 

 interfered with his appetite. 



From time to time during the day I managed 

 to extract a little information from the taciturn 



L 2 



