THIRTEENTH DAY. 207 
“ Well, but here Lam!” There he was most assuredly, but 
he could not give us back our lost hour. 
We now set off, my brother-in-law and I sitting in the 
‘same cart, and again exposed to the frightful torments caused 
by the too immediate proximity of our Slavonian coachman, 
our only solace being the beauty of the weather, for it had 
stopped raining during the night, and we felt refreshed and 
invigorated by this fine fresh morning with its light mists, 
which almost reminded us of an October day. 
We urged our driver to do his very best, and by a constant 
thrashing of his cat-like horses he very soon managed to bring 
us into the Kovil forest. ; 
On getting near the Sea-Hagle’s nest, at which I had vainly 
waited yesterday, I stopped the cart and got out, while my 
brother-in-law drove on to the Imperial Hagle’s nest, where he 
had shot the female, and at which he now proposed to watch 
for the male. 
I stole cautiously through the bushes up to the Sea-Hagle’s 
dwelling, but hardly had I got within measurable distance 
of it, when both the eagles rose and circled round, screaming 
loudly. 
The unpunctuality of the forester had thus frustrated my 
plan of hiding myself near the nest very early, while the 
eagles were away on their first foraging expedition, a daily 
event which always occurs immediately after sunrise, and I 
arrived just at the moment when they had finished giving the 
young birds their morning meal. This is precisely the most 
inauspicious moment, for both the old birds have by that time 
already breakfasted, and after attending to their parental 
duties, sit lazily on the trees near their nest, and there is then 
no chance of success, especially with a pair of eagles which 
have had their wits somewhat sharpened. My prospects were 
therefore most unfavourable when I betook myself to my place 
of concealment in a thick bush. 
