upon a small hut surrounded by almost impenetrable thickets.  The hunter crept on in advance of the rest, and looking into the interior through the chinks of timbers, he saw a man drying his clothes by a small fire.  He quietly said, “Good-day.”  The robber started up, and seizing his gun, flung open the door and fired his fowling-piece at once at his visitor.  Fortunately the powder proved to be damp, or he must have received the full charge.  The bear-slayer was now in close quarters, and fired off his revolver within a short distance of the other’s head.  The shot took effect, and he fell in a heap stunned and senseless.  At first they thought he was dead, and it is marvellous that the well-aimed discharge did not kill him.  His skull must have been uncommonly thick.  This fellow was known to be the leader.  The rest of the gang had probably escaped into Moldavia, from whence they came.

My friends at St Miklos were kind enough to promise to get up a bear-hunt for me, and it was arranged that I should go and see the baths of Borsek, and return on Saturday night, so as to be ready for the bear-hunt on Sunday.  The “better observance of the Sabbath” is always associated with bear-hunting in these parts.

I left St Miklos in a snowstorm, though it was only the 16th of September—­very early for such signs of winter.  I was not prepared for wintry weather.  It frustrated my plans and expectations a good deal.  I was disappointed, too, in the climate, for I had always heard that the late autumn is about the finest time for Transylvania.

I have invariably remarked that whenever I go to a new country it is the signal for “abnormal meteorological disturbances,” as they call bad weather in the newspapers.  My own notion is that weather is a very mixed affair everywhere.

For three mortal hours I rode on through a blinding snowstorm.  At length I espied the ruin of an unfinished cottage by the wayside, and here I bethought me I would take shelter and see after my dinner; for whatever happens, I can be hungry directly afterwards—­I think an earthquake would give me an appetite.

My unfurnished lodgings were in as wild a spot as imagination could picture.  No wonder that the builder had abandoned the construction of this solitary dwelling; why it had ever been commenced passes my comprehension.  It was just at the entrance of a mountain valley, treeless, stony, and rugged, through which there were at intervals the semblance of a track—­a desolate, God-forgotten-looking place.  On consulting the map I found that the “road” led to Moldavia.  I resolved it should not lead me there.  Here then, in this dreary spot, with its gable-end to the road, and turning away from the prospect—­and no wonder—­stood the carcass of a cottage.  My horse and I scrambled over the breach in the wall, where a garden never had smiled, and got into the roofless house.  It was with considerable difficulty that I found sticks enough for my kitchen fire.