234 SPORTING IN BOTH HEMISPHERES. 



hosts of friends, but, if such a thing be possible, have I verily 

 believe, enabled him to steer through the stormy and diffi- 

 cult passages of life without an enemy, or at least one worthy 

 of being called so. 



It was through information derived from him that I was 

 first aware of the sporting facilities of different kinds that 

 this neighbourhood afforded, but not until a much later 

 period that I put this knowledge to a practical use ; indeed, 

 I may quote the years 1841 and 1842, immediately suc- 

 ceeding my residence at Huy, as the first during which I 

 had any experience in the agremens of this charming 

 country. Many of my readers have doubtless traversed the 

 rich valley of the Kinzig, and the wild and romantic scenery 

 of the Black Forest between Offenburg and Schaff hausen ; 

 but I imagine that very few have explored it in detail, gun 

 and fishing- rod in hand, so frequently as the writer of these 

 sketches. 



The autumn of 1841, and the winter of that and the 

 succeeding year, I established my head-quarters at that most 

 comfortable, reasonable, and best of hotels, the " Fortuna" at 

 Offenburg; and having arrived a little too late for the fishing 

 season, took measures, with the kind assistance of my friend 

 Pfaeler, to procure the best shooting the neighbourhood 

 afforded an object by no means difficult to be obtained, as 

 the proprietors of the different jaghts or chasses were most 

 civil and attentive in giving any respectable stranger a 

 general invitation to their shooting parties or battues. 



I may as well mention that at that time, and I believe at 

 present, the shootings, or jaghts, in the Grand Duchy of 

 Baden were the monopoly of the government, defined 

 as to extent and position, and let out by auction to the 

 highest bidder once in a certain period of years, and that the 

 principal revenue of the kingdom being derived from its 

 extensive forests (once the property of the Church), the laws 



