286 BIRD-HUNTING 



rifle with me, he begged to see it, and it was difficult 

 to keep from laughing to see him handle and point 

 it. He had evidently never handled one before. He 

 wanted to shoot at a swallow sitting on a telegraph 

 wire, in the middle of the village, and I have no 

 doubt that if I had provided him with a cartridge 

 he would have blazed away, and probably there 

 would have been a case of manslaughter. I thought 

 we were doomed to hear him ' gas ' all night, but 

 at last we managed to escape. That sub-prefect 

 was a standing joke with us for the remainder of 

 my stay, and provided us with much amusement, 

 though at the time the man was an unmitigated 

 nuisance. 



The roads we found fairly good, but terribly 

 uneven, and, the wagon being without springs, the 

 jolting was terrific. My teeth were nearly driven 

 through the top of my head sometimes, and I had 

 to hold my stomach together with one hand while 

 I clutched the side of the wagon with the other. 



The dust was awful, quite four inches thick, and it 

 flew about in dense clouds. 



After ten hours of this torture under a broiling 

 sun at last we arrived at our destination, the last 

 eight or nine miles being through the outskirts of 

 the forest, which gave us a relief from the dust and 

 the heat, though we could only progress sometimes 

 at a walk. An acquaintance of Rettig's, with whom 



