2 SAVAGE SVANETIA. 



the service of a master pulled down by hard- 

 sliip and diphtheria, I was heartily ready to 

 acknowledge the truth of the proverb. But 

 to the sportsman, as to the slave, freedom 

 from his bonds can bring no lasting happi- 

 ness. The freed slave is, if history and 

 travellers lie not, a slave into whom have 

 entered seven devils worse than the first. 

 Freedom to him means aimless idleness, and 

 idleness misery. So too with the hunter of 

 big game. However much he may have felt 

 the hardships which wait on the worship of 

 the woodland goddess, he has but to shake 

 her fetters off to find how tame and insipid 

 life would be without them. The limbs which 

 manly toil almost beyond their power had 

 strung and hardened until they were tough 

 as tempered steel, soften when the stram upon 

 them ceases, and fill with aches and pains 

 which they had never known on rugged hill- 

 side or forest couch. The bright self-reliant 



