"VOELKER'S" CHASSE. 237 



semicircle, including a very large space of ground, and at 

 about twenty or thirty paces from each other. 



The chasseurs (perhaps forty or fifty in number) are 

 arranged in line, about a mile in advance, and at intervening 

 distances of about fifty yards ; and at a given signal the drive 

 commences. Every dissonant and diabolical cry that a 

 German peasant is capable of uttering simultaneously re- 

 sounds, and the affrighted hares are soon seen running about 

 in all directions, some trying to break through the ranks of 

 the beaters, who, independently of the terror occasioned by 

 their voices, throw sticks and stones at them as they 

 approach, but by far the greater number advancing towards 

 the sportsmen, who are quietly waiting, in every variety of 

 attitude, to receive them. And now begins a very exciting 

 and sometimes very ludicrous scene. On a cold day, the 

 dresses of the assembled company would form a curious 

 study for a theatrical costumier. The French chasseur, with 

 his smart shako, or wide-awake, variety of colours, mul- 

 tiplicity of pockets, and endless assortment of powder-horns, 

 shot-belts, &c., hanging everywhere about his person, is 

 taking aim in a picturesque attitude long before the game 

 arrives within shot of him ; a fat, phlegmatic German, his 

 head enveloped in a fur cap, his body in a fur coat, and his 

 hands in a fur muff, is quietly seated on a camp-stool that 

 he has brought with him, his pipe in his mouth, and his 

 fowling-piece between his knees, with his eyes steadily fixed 

 upon the gradual advent of some devoted hare, that he con- 

 siders sufficiently rash to approach within fifteen or twenty 

 paces (he never shoots at a longer distance) of such a for- 

 midable object as himself. Here and there an Englishman, 

 like myself, simply, but evidently far too lightly attired for 

 this stationary sort of sport, and, by way of warming himself, 

 about to commit a solecism that will bring upon him the 

 united execrations of the field. As the game comes nearer, 



