Bavarian SpoiHing, 



5871 



them to carry), come stealing round the corners and along the streets 

 at a very rapid pace. Occasionally sentinels are found frozen at 

 their posts, though the guard is relieved at very short intervals, and 

 all are well provided with warm clothing against the intense cold. 

 The rapid river Tsar is arrested in its course, and soon becomes 

 a dense mass of ice; and for four months winter reigns triumphant, 

 without an interval of a thaw or the remotest prospect of a thaw for 

 a single hour. 



Such is the climate and such the situation of the Bavarian capital ; 

 but, notwithstanding the cold, the air is clear and the sun shines 

 cheerily ; and when it was announced that the king would shoot 

 hares at a certain spot about two leagues distant from the town, 

 it required no second summons to persuade four Englishmen to drive 

 to the spot, eager to be spectators of the scene. When we reached 

 the ground the royal sportsmen had not yet arrived, but a large num- 

 ber of keepers stood ready, and pointed out to us the most astounding 

 preparations for sport I ever beheld. For two days previous to the 

 hunt a large number of peasants had been employed to beat up the 

 country for several miles round : this they effected by making a cor- 

 don, encircling the game and walking up tow-ards the centre; and 

 thus they gradually drove the hares in immense numbers into a very 

 small space, viz., a little cover of perhaps four acres in extent : the 

 hares so driven up had been enclosed by a wall of canvas from nine to 

 ten feet in height, and when the keepers took us inside the enclosure, 

 prior to the arrival of the king, there were the wretched victims lying 

 huddled together like a dense flock of sheep, to the number of sixteen 

 hundred, as we afterwards ascertained on counting the slain. Pre- 

 sently the royal sledges arrived with the king (now the ex-king) Lud- 

 wig, the Crown Prince (the present King of Bavaria), Prince Luitpold, 

 Prince Max, and two other royal princes, for none but royal princes 

 may shoot in these right royal .battues : immediately they entered 

 the canvas wall, and took up their positions at the farther end of the 

 enclosure, each within a certain little nook of boughs, waist high, 

 which had been previously prepared, of fir branches ; whether as a 

 protection against the rage of wounded hares, or as a pretence at am- 

 bush, I know not : and now the sportsmen are all standing behind 

 their respective defences, in a line, about twenty yards apart from one 

 another, and with their faces towards the canvas wall, wdiich might 

 be thirty yards in their front, each armed with a double-barrelled gun, 

 and each with a whole posse of keepers behind him, with other guns 

 to load and hand over. The word is given that all is ready ; and now 



