I call the gods from Olympus to testify to the quality of the nectar this combination produces.  Some of those little porcelain jugs are going on their travels soon.

Meeting the various members of the Princess’s charming family and remembering their titles was not an ordeal at all—­at least it was not after it was over.  They were quite like other people, except that their manners were unusually good.  There was to be a hunt that morning—­an amusing, luxurious sort of hunt quite in my line; one where I could go in a carriage and see the animals caught, but where I need not see them killed.

They were to hunt a mischievous little burrowing animal something like our badger, which is as great a pest to Poland as the rabbits are to Australia.  They destroy the crops by eating their roots, so every little while a hunt is organized to destroy them in large numbers.  The foresters had been sent out the night before to discover a favorite haunt of theirs, and to fill up all the entrances to their burrows; so all that we had to do was to drive to the scene of action.

It sounds simple enough, but I most solemnly assure you that it was anything but a simple drive to one fresh from the asphalt of Paris, for, like Jehu, they drove furiously.

Their horses are all wild, runaway beasts, and they drive them at an uneven gallop resembling the gait of our fire-engine horses at home, except that ours go more slowly.  Sometimes the horses fall down when they drive across country, as they stop only for stone walls or moats.  The carriages must be built of iron, for the front wheels drop a few feet into a burrow every now and then, and at such times an unwary American is liable to be pitched over the coachman’s head.  “Hold on with both hands, shut your eyes, and keep your tongue from between your teeth,” would be my instructions to one about to “take a drive” in Poland.

When we came to the place we found the foresters watching the dachshunde.  These I discovered to be long, flat, shallow dogs with stumpy legs—­a dog which an American has described as “looking as if he was always coming out from under a bureau.”  Very cautiously here and there the foresters uncovered a burrow, and a dachshund disappeared.  Then from below ground came the sounds of fighting.  The dachshunde had found their prey.  The foresters ran about, stooping to locate the sound.  When they discovered the spot a dozen of them at once began to dig as fast as they could.

Presently a writhing, rolling, barking bunch of fur and flying sand came into view, when a forester with a long forked stick caught the animal just back of its head and flung it into a coarse sack, which was then tied up and thrown aside, and the hunt went on.  After we all went home the foresters gathered up these bags and killed the poor little animals somehow—­mercifully, I hope.

The dinner, which came at two o’clock, was so much of a function, on account of the number of guests in the house, that it impressed itself upon my memory.