THE CHASSE NEAR HAMBUKG. 305 



great commercial port as a means of conveyance for their 

 products over the whole of Germany. 



But all this is little to the purpose of my subject the 

 chasse. What sport is to be had in a town without any 

 surrounding country, whose frontiers are the end of the 

 streets ? a city confined between two rivers, and almost close 

 to the sea, not even, as I had reason to hope, any marshes, 

 for the Elbe and the Ester, frozen over half the year, are 

 covered with wagons instead of boats; admirable country 

 for sledges and skaters, but sad and desolate for sportsmen, 

 fishermen, and other amphibious creatures. But what can- 

 not riches effect 1 Hamburg possesses no territory, but her 

 merchant princes, by virtue of their gold, make use of the 

 lands of their neighbours ; they hire vast tracts of shooting 

 ground in Mecklenburg, Denmark, and Hanover. If they 

 felt disposed they could purchase the two Duchies and the 

 two kingdoms. I had scarcely expressed my wishes to an 

 opulent resident of the place, when I received several invita- 

 tions, given with the most cordial affability. I soon per- 

 ceived that if English habits and customs are prevalent 

 almost everywhere in Hamburg, in the city itself, in the 

 charming villas which surround it, and which resemble those 

 on the banks of the Thames, still that on one point, one 

 point alone, she has remained firm in her attachment to her 

 old national traditions. The chasse dogs, guns, and the 

 usages of the chasse are all German ! This contradiction, 

 or rather exception, exciting my curiosity, I discovered, by 

 questions and otherwise, why baUue-shooiiug in Germany is 

 the only method in favour of making war against the whole 

 host of game quadrupeds, from the humble hare to the 

 royal stag. The simple reason why the Germans deprive 

 themselves of the noblest of all kinds of sport, that of hunting 

 the king of the forest, or other beasts, with all the accessories 

 of hounds, horns, and horsemen, is that this species of cJiasse 



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