268 EXTRACTS FROM 
and down for a quarter of an hour. Twice an ichneumon 
put its head out close to the guns, but no one could fire for 
fear of his neighbour, and the cunning beast, recognizing the 
danger it was in, let itself be driven backwards and forwards 
by the dogs, but would not leave its safe cover; so, as time 
was pressing, we had to whip off the dogs and continue our 
journey without getting it. 
Our road led us to a short branch line of rail used for 
transport purposes, which runs from the factory at Abouksor 
to the largest of the sugar-cane fields. 
We stopped an engine that was passing by, and got into an 
empty truck that was attached to it, thus reaching Abouksor 
very speedily, while our Arabs rode down between the rails 
at full gallop, and followed us up with incredible quickness. 
Having still some time to spare, we resolved to try another 
beat through the cane-field which we had driven the first day, 
so we hastily got together as many beaters as possible and 
surrounded it. 
The beat had only just begun when a wolf broke at a corner 
near one of the guns; but there were such a number of people 
loafing about that he could not shoot while the beast was near, 
and when he did fire both barrels it was too far away. 
A few moments later another sportsman shot an enormous 
wolf, the largest we had as yet bagged, just at the instant 
when it was crossing a path which ran through the field, and 
before the beat was finished two other guns each shot a wolf, 
and a Woodcock was missed. 
We now left the field, which had afforded us better sport 
than when we had first hunted it three days ago. At the 
station there was a row of six Wolves laid out, all shot in one 
day ; and if we had also got the wounded ones we should 
have had quite an extraordinary bag. 
On the whole, we had every reason to be satisfied with the 
proceeds of our shooting-excursion into the oasis of Fayim, 
