218 IN CORROUR FOREST 



the deer fed over the ridge ; but, instead of feeding, they 

 all lay down, so that plan failed. Scanning the ground 

 anxiously, Homo omnisciens detected a slight wrinkle 

 on the far side of the smooth slope below the deer. If we 

 could only reach that, it led up to a small knoll within 

 range. His mind was soon made up. The wrinkle 

 could only be reached by descending the hill almost 

 to its base, say fifteen hundred feet from where we lay, 

 passing under a cliff to the other side of the smooth 

 ground, and climbing to the same elevation on the far 

 side. It seems easy enough on paper, but it involved 

 a journey not less in distance than from St. Paul's 

 Cathedral, by the Embankment, to Westminster, thence 

 to the Marble Arch, and back by Holborn to St. Martin's- 

 le-Grand plus a descent and ascent of fifteen hundred 

 feet. 



It took us the best part of two hours, and the last 

 quarter of a mile was the worst, for it was on all fours 

 an attitude which adult human beings now find it as 

 difficult to maintain for long as their quadrumanous 

 ancestors once found it was to abandon. Oh ! those 

 redundant luncheons those superfluous entrees that 

 unnecessary nutrition assimilated in the sleepy south- 

 how one repents of them in moments like these ! How- 

 ever, all goes well, and here I am, inditing these lines 

 within one hundred and forty yards of the big stag, 

 waiting till it shall please his majesty to rise and give 

 me a chance at his broadside. Through a pair of Zeiss 

 reflectors I can read his very expression, the lazy con- 

 tent with which he lolls his well-antlered crest upon his 



