SHORES OF THE CASPIAN. 



and mulberry-trees ; and though the wild boars 

 played the deuce with the rice-fields, the mulberry- 

 trees and their devourers the silkworms throve 

 amazingly. Mr. Miiller, our host, had not knocked 

 about in all the odd corners of the earth for 

 nothing, so that when we reached his Shanty, 

 though at a couple of dozen paces or so you might 

 meet with impenetrable jungle, we found it the 

 most comfortable well-built house we had seen 

 since we left Tin 1 is. In the night wild boars had 

 dug up the small patch of garden by the door ; on 

 a little lawn not far off, a badger had turned up 

 all the turf in his nocturnal gambols ; while right 

 and left as we approached snipe and cock went off 

 like crackers from under our feet. 



During the first three days of our stay at 

 Eryvool, we did nothing but shoot cock and phea- 

 sant, or, with a pack of fine dogs, the pride of Mr. 

 Miiller's heart, hunt the wild swine that abounded in 

 the thick places of the forest ; while east and west, 

 and south and north, our messengers went forth 

 offering large rewards for tidings of any tiger or 

 leopard within three days' march. 



To those who have not seen the wild-fowl shoot- 

 ing of the Caspian, any account of the swarms of 

 cock and snipe (chiefly jack j at Eryvool in the be- 

 ginning of the year 1871) would seem overdrawn. 

 We were sick of shooting before the three days 

 were over, though it took more than one day of 



