PERSIA 
The slopes in the forest are often steep and the ground very slippery. 
Persian givas are here useless or worse. Indiarubber soled boots might be 
good, but as the ground is in the morning wet with very heavy dew, I should 
think shooting boots with new hob nails would be about the best thing to 
wear. Thorns are very bad and gaiters are therefore better than stockings. 
On the whole, the pursuit of the maral stag must be pronounced an 
unsatisfactory form of sport. In this way: that you may be on the right 
ground, you may have heard stags roaring, you may spare yourself no hard 
work, permit yourself no slackness of mind, make every step a subject of con- 
scientious and meticulous effort, and yet never see a good stag . Yet it little be - 
hoves anyone who can spend some autumn days in that country to grumble, 
whether at the “unsporting ” ways of deer, his luck, or any other thing. 
It is the early morning, when hopes are high. You make for the ridges 
to spy the open ground. The dew sprays as you brush through the long 
grass. Through a corner of the dark silent forest, by fairy glades, down 
into hollows where night’s stagnant air strikes cold and damp, over open 
shoulders redolent with aromatic herbs, in the day time gay with wild 
flowers, at this hour grey and colourless. You pass warily, hoping at 
every step to see the dark forms of deer. A sudden crashing of branches 
close by turns you to stone. You have surprised some large animal more 
wary than yourself. The sky becomes suffused with colour, and presently 
from behind the dark hills beyond the mist -hung plain the sun shows his 
glory, and the dim, grey landscape has become painted in living colours. 
The rich greens of the lower forest are still untouched by autumn chills, 
but higher up are splashes of copper, while round the base of the grey crags, 
and climbing up their riven sides, the birches flaunt their pure gold. 
The sun grows hot and you reluctantly realize that that chapter in the 
day’s work is closed. Breakfast is eaten and steps are turned towards the 
deep forest. About the still -hunting, too, there is a charm, but it may be 
not far removed from tedium. You creep silently — or as silently as possible 
—through the woods. Through solemn aisles, cool and still, across deep- 
cut coombes with tumbled rocks, clothed in ferns and mosses, over open 
sunlit spaces, odorous with flowers. There are signs enough of deer to 
prevent hope wearying. You come across the mud hole where a stag 
wallowed last night, ground ploughed up by a battle royal. Your rifle is 
ready in your hand — “ There’s no bell an’ candle in this yer play, you got 
to be thar waitin’ ” — and so on through the hot hours. 
When evening draws near it is once more time for the open ground. You 
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